1 . Plenty, an agricultural technology company in San Francisco, is reinventing farms and farming. Nater Storye, the company’s chief science officer says the future of the farms will be vertical (垂直的) and indoors, so food can be grown anywhere in the world all year round, and farms will employ robots and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the quality of growth for fruits and vegetables. Plenty does all those things but uses 95% less water and 99% less land.
As AI is on the rise, farmers on flat farms have been using new tools to make farming better or easier. In recent years, they have been using drones (无人机) and robots to improve efficiency. However, flat farms still use a lot of water and land, while a Plenty’s vertical farm can produce the same quantity of fruits and vegetables as a 720-acre flat farm, but on only 2 acres.
Plenty’s climate-controlled indoor farm has rows of plants growing vertically. There are LED lights shining on them, robots moving them around, and AI managing all the variables of water, temperature, and light. The conditions are so good that the production per acre is 400 times higher than that of an outdoor farm.
Another advantage of vertical farming is that the fruits and vegetables are grown at a warehouse nearby instead of 1,000 miles away or more from a city. That means many transportation miles are saved, which can reduce millions of tons of greenhouse gases every year and the price of fruits and vegetables will also go down. Imported (进口的) fruits and vegetables are more expensive, so poor people in society are at an extreme nutritional disadvantage. Vertical farms could cope with this problem.
Also, Plenty’s farms grow organic food without using herbicides (除草剂) or pesticides. They recycle all the water used, even catching the water in the air. The best farm in San Francisco is using 100% renewable energy.
Moreover, all the packaging is 100% recyclable, made of recycled plastic and specially designed to keep the food fresh longer to reduce food waste. Ideally, the company will branch out, opening farms across the country and beyond.
1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?| A．Robots and AI used on vertical farms can quicken the growth of plants. |
| B．Fruits and vegetables grown on vertical farms are more tasty. |
| C．Both land and water can be saved on vertical farms. |
| D．Plenty is the first company to grow crops on vertical farms. |
| A．Register. | B．Improve. | C．Present. | D．Solve. |
| A．They will have more farms. | B．They will only be run by robots and AI. |
| C．They will bring about terrible problems. | D．They will completely take the place of flat farms. |
| A．To question the possibility of vertical farming |
| B．To show the technologies of vertical farming. |
| C．To discuss the potential problems of vertical farming |
| D．To introduce and explain the benefits of vertical farming. |
2 . Well over half of the average diet in the UK and US now consists of ultra-processed food (UPF) — or, as one scientist prefers to put it, industrially produced edible (可食用的) substances. Though defining it technically is complex, the simple explanation is that it contains items you wouldn’t normally find in a kitchen.
Sometimes UPF looks like junk food obviously artificial and high in salt, fat and sugar. But it often comes in reliable forms such as soup, muesli or yogurt. Unfortunately, almost every food that comes with a health claim on the packet is UPF. And a vast body of data has emerged in support of the theory that UPF damages the human body and increases rates of cancer, mental illness, etc.
Produced by a handful of multinational companies, UPF is created to be cheap to produce and transport, with industrially derived (提取的) substances replacing costlier ingredients (原料) and ensuring long shelf lives. It is also designed to make us buy more — essential in a system where businesses must keep growing to satisfy their shareholders each quarter. Global consumption is rising fast, especially in middle-income countries.
The impact is firstly on individual bodies, but through them on health services. This is a social problem that cannot be solved by telling consumers to check product labels. UPF consumption is not propelled by laziness or greed, but poverty, intensive marketing and foods designed to make us keep eating:
Taking on big food is harder than tackling big tobacco has been. It requires addressing a broad range of products that many people cannot simply cut out. But it is possible and necessary. Addressing poverty is central: when people can afford to eat more healthily, they generally do. The government should ensure that people learn not only about the risks of UPF, but also about how to eat well. Measures should be taken to ensure that the food consumption is pushed by nutritional needs and appetites — not by financialised growth.
1. What can we know about UPF?| A．It can’t be found in a kitchen. | B．It looks like junk food but is healthy. |
| C．It is most popular in rich countries. | D．It may harm physical and mental health. |
| A．Forbidden. | B．Proved. | C．Driven. | D．Assessed. |
| A．To handle the tobacco problem first. | B．To limit the production of UPF. |
| C．To ban people from consuming UPF. | D．To raise people’s awareness of healthy diet. |
| A．UPF: Blame Businesses, Not Consumers | B．UPF: Convenience Food |
| C．UPF: Time to Reach More People | D．UPF: A Sensitive Issue |
3 . There was a time when a trip to the supermarket in the United States often ended with a seemingly simple question from the cashier, “Paper or plastic?” Well, which type of bag would you choose?
While both types of bags have some influence on the environment, it has long been supposed that paper bags are better. They are made from a renewable source, are broken down easily, burn without giving off thick smoke and can be recycled. However, the producing process behind paper bags uses more energy than that of plastic ones. How can this be true?
Studies show that paper bag production requires four times as much energy as plastic bag production. And the amount of water used to make them is twenty times larger. Besides, the influence on forests is very serious. It takes about fourteen million trees to produce ten billion paper bags, which happen to be the number of bags used in the United States yearly. In terms of recycling, the idea that paper bags are more environment-friendly than plastic ones can be quickly discarded. Research shows it requires about 98% less energy to recycle plastic than it does to recycle paper.
Even though paper bags might be more harmful than plastic ones, plastic still seems to be considered as the more harmful of the two by governments. In Ireland, for example, a tax has been introduced to discourage the use of plastic bags. People have to pay 22 cents for every plastic bag, and as a result, their use has dropped quickly.
There’s no doubt that it makes more sense to reuse these bags. However, we don’t seem to be doing that at present. That may be because they fall apart quickly. If so, cloth bags are a better choice, but still, their production also has a bad influence on the environment. So what to do? How should we answer the question of “Paper or plastic?” It seems that we first need to ask ourselves one more general question: “What can I do to help the environment?”
1. Why does the author ask the question at the end of paragraph 1?| A．To express the author’s doubts. |
| B．To tell readers how to save money. |
| C．To show the kindness of the cashier. |
| D．To introduce the point for discussion to arouse readers’ interest. |
| A．need more water to produce | B．require less energy to recycle |
| C．have less influence on forests | D．take more time to break down |
| A．Shared. | B．Discussed. | C．Given up. | D．Put forward. |
| A．Paper or cloth? | B．A new bag or your own one? |
| C．Paper or plastic? | D．A small bag or big one? |
4 . 阅读下面短文, 根据所给情节进行续写, 使之构成一个完整的故事。
A Christmas Visit
As 17-year-old Torriell Norwood drove through St. Petersburg, Florida, last February with her friends to pay a visit to the great park, she shared her dream of becoming a doctor. She had recently taken some first aid courses. The other girls shared stories of their experiences and adventures. But the laughter and chatter from the four teenage girls in the car quickly gave way to screams, As they passed a road junction(交叉路口), a car crashed into the side of their vehicle, sending their black car sailing into the yard of a nearby home. It only stopped when it crashed into a tree. All of the girls were in panic.
As smoke rose from the car, a bystander(旁观者)shouted, “It’s about to blow up . Get out. ”The impact had bent the driver’s door, meaning it wouldn’t open. The bystander seized the door handle of the car, using all his strength to pull it open, but failed. Shaken, but otherwise OK. Norwood crawled out through the window. She had a cut on the right side of her face. Her lovely face became very pale. Along with two of her friends, who’d also managed to free themselves, she ran for her life.
But halfway down the street, she realized that her best friend, Azarria Simmons, was not with them. Norwood ran back to the car and found Simmons lying in the back seat. “She isn’t moving,” Norwood shouted, with her heart beating hard. She threw open the back door and pulled her friend out, avoiding the broken glass as best she could. She dragged Simmons a few feet to safety and laid her on the ground. She checked per pulse. Nothing. She put her head against Simmons’s chest. No sign of life. That’s when she started CPR(心肺复苏术)
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。
If the accident had happened a few weeks earlier, she might not have known what to do.
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After a while, the CPR worked and Simmons regained her consciousness.
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