1 . 语法填空。

Alex, an African grey parrot, has amazed scientists with his language capabilities (能力). The clever bird can recognize over 50 different objects without     1     (remind) and answer questions about     2     (they) shape, size and color. Recent studies have shown African parrots can not only repeat words and phrases they hear,     3     copy the sound of laughter. Because they are so clever, parrots can get bored easily. They are very active and need things to awaken their     4     (curious). Last month, Dr Irene Pepper, a psychologist (心理学家), who has been working with Alex,     5     ( create ) a computer programme in     6     the parrot could choose from four activities-watching a video, listening to music, seeing pictures or playing a game. At the beginning, Alex was curious, but soon he lost interest in it. When Dr Pepper was aware     7     Alex’s boredom, he managed to get the parrot interested again by changing the activity. Scientists have made a discovery,     8     ( base ) on a large quantity of experiments, that African parrots can     9     ( actual) use language, not just repeat it. They can even make jokes. Obviously, they have     10     active vocabulary of almost a thousand words.

2 . We all feel better after a night's sleep and insects are no different. But new studies have found a commonly used pesticide (农药) is disturbing the sleep of bees and flies. In one study,   researchers gave bees nectar sugar (花蜜糖) mixed with neonicotinoids (烟碱类农药)—one of the most commonly used pesticides—and then tracked their movements.

The impact of the pesticide — similar to the amount a bee would encounter in the wild —was terrible. “It seems to disturb the body clock in bees — they are sleeping a lot more in the daytime. It's causing the disorder of timing of their normal behaviors,” Kiah Tasman, lead author of the studies, said.

This, she explained, could have serious results. “It's quite worrying because our studies show that their motivation of searching for food has decreased. Besides, many plants including the fruit and vegetables and so on rely on pollinators (传粉者), like bees, to reproduce (繁殖). Bees take on a big share of this workload. Pollinators, most often honey bees, are responsible for one in every three bites of food we take, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, and they increase crop values in the US by more than $15 billion each year,” Tasman added.

But bees are under threat because of widespread pesticide use, habitat loss and the climate crisis. “If the time they are managing to go out and search for food is at night-time when many flowers aren't available, that's going to hugely reduce how successful they are at collecting the food that the colony needs to grow and reproduce,” Tasman said. “It could also affect how well bees are able to care for their young. Meanwhile, the same pesticide has already been found to damage the brains of baby bees.”

In a second study, the researchers focused their attention on flies, again exposing them to neonicotinoids. The results showed that the pesticide was working directly on the cells in the brain that run the body clock, which decides when sleep and activity happen in a day, and confusing them.

1. What is the most probable focus of the new studies?

A．The amount of pesticide bees may encounter in the wild.

B．The indications of different movements of bees.

C．The impact of pesticides on insects' behaviors.

D．The similarity between bees' and flies' life habits.

2. What did the researchers find about bees taking in neonicotinoids?

A．They lost the right sense of time.

B．They could not find food quickly.

C．They suffered from sleeplessness.

D．They had become much healthier.

3. What does the underlined word in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．birthplace	B．group
C．habitat	D．plant

4. What is Tasman's attitude towards bees' searching for food at night-time?

A．Optimistic.	B．Uncertain.
C．Indifferent.	D．Negative.

4 . “Buzz. Buzz. The queen is that way,” said one honey bee to another. “Pass it on.” Honey bees can’t speak, of course, but scientists have found that the insects combine teamwork and chemicals to relay the queen’s location to the rest of the community, revealing an extraordinary means of long distance, mass communication.

Individual honey bees communicate with the chemical called pheromones, which scientists have long known. But just how these individual signals work together to gather tens of thousands of bees around a queen has remained a mystery.

In the new study, Dieu My Nguyen, a scientist at the University of Colorado, and his colleagues focused on a colony of western honey bees, the most common honey bee species in the world. The researchers set up a flat, pizza box–size arena with a transparent ceiling, in which the bees could walk around, but not fly. They put the queen bee into a cage on one side and released the worker honey bees on the other. The scientists then recorded the insects’ movements from above with a camera and an AI software tracking bees that were releasing pheromones.

Once the first worker honey bees located the queen, they began to gather chains of evenly spaced bees that extended outward from the queen, with each bee sending out pheromones to its neighbor down the line. The findings are the first direct observations of this collective communication in honey bees. Like smelly bread crumbs, the branching communication lines guided far-off honey bees back to the queen’s location — a feat no single bee could achieve alone.

Mark Carroll, an insect biologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, cautions that the work was done in a closed, practically 2D space. In reality, he notes, honey bee colonies are 3D, and they often have to fight with elements like wind and rain, which make communicating more complicated. “The next step will be to observe natural honey bee swarms and see if they’re actually doing this.” he says.

1. What is the focus of the new study?

A．Why worker bees gather around a queen bee.

B．How pheromones function in a bee’s body.

C．Why insects’ mass communication is limited to short distances.

D．How the queen’s location is passed on to the rest of the colony.

2. What is mainly talked about in Paragraph 3?

A．The process of the experiment.	B．The equipment required for the experiment.
C．The technique used in the experiment.	D．The species chosen for the experiment.

3. What does the underlined word “feat” in Paragraph 4 refer to?

A．Direction.

B．Movement.

C．Location.

D．Relay.

4. What’s Mark Carroll’s attitude to the study?

A．Doubtful.

B．Reliable.

C．Realistic.

D．Influential.

5 . You may be concerned about how to clear clutter (杂乱的东西) from your bedroom and basement.     1     As May planting season is drawing near, turn your attention towards what can help your garden grow.

Define “weeds” for yourself.

I have always defined weeds as “unwanted plants”. Some, like clover (三叶草),have positive characteristics like enriching the soil. Others, like dandelion greens, can be eaten. So one gardener's weeds might be another gardener's dinner! Decide what you truly value.     2    

Enjoy the weeding process.

Weed removal is a never-ending process. Try to treat the activity in a positive way. You can casually pull weeds as you spot them when walking by your gardens.     3     Whatever attention you are able to give to your weeds is OK — even though you'll never feel quite “finished”, remind yourself that every weed pulled means progress.

    4    

After months of being absorbed in colorful garden catalogue, I often hit the nursery (苗圃) in May, filled with inspiration and adventure. “This year,” I say, “I'll try everything!” But time has taught me that this wild ambition can work against me. If I choose too many plants to experiment with, my plantings will crowd each other out. Try making a map of your garden before you head to the garden center, using the recommended spacing to guide your design.

Reassess your garden tool collection.

Just like indoor clutter, garden clutter can result from having too many tools. Some tools are necessary for every gardener.     5     They can build up and collect dust or dirt. So go through your tools and decide which tools don't work for you and which are your forever garden companions.

A．Make a clear garden plan.

B．Sort out your garden tools.

C．But what about clutter in your garden?

D．And then pull the rest, without hesitation.

E．Weeds can crowd out your intentional plantings.

F．But too many of them can also cause trouble to you.

G．Or you can set aside time to go all out for weed removal.

6 . You might have heard about how honey bees are doing poorly these days. It’s different, though, from the situation many of the world’s vulnerable (脆弱的) animals find themselves in. We want them to live their lives and grow stronger, but are we willing to change our lifestyles to make it happen? The decrease in honey bees is a bit different, because if honey bees can’t live well, neither can people and, eventually people won’t eat as a result.

As happened in 2017, U.S. beekeepers lost 40 percent of their bees because of a disease. It’s really about the earnings of beekeepers and the reduced amount of bees. But it doesn’t stop there. Honey bees go around doing pollination (授粉). And do you know what need to be pollinated? That’s our crops. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates bees pollinate about $15 billion worth of apples and peaches each year in the United States alone.

So, we 21st-century humans not only take notice, but also start trying to fix the problem. It’s infeasible that we give every bee the treatment. We can’t imagine how huge the task is and how hard we carry on it! The most promising immediate solution seems to prevent the disease. That’s where the bee vaccine (疫苗) comes.

Scientists have long thought immunizing (使免疫) bees will be unworkable, but a 2015 study discovered that bees transfer immunity to their babies through protein. Vaccinating a bee won’t help that bee, but if you vaccinate the queen of bees, she can pass her immunity on to her later generations through her eggs.

The new vaccine will treat for American foulbrood (AFB), a serious disease that quickly destroys bees. It’s in the testing phases and most likely headed for bee boxes near you. And don’t worry, it doesn’t require a tiny doctor’s chair and needle to deliver the vaccine—the queen bee can drink the medicine in a little sugar water and pass it along to her later generations.

1. What does exactly the author intend to tell us through the 2017 beekeepers’ incident?

A．The beekeepers lead a terrible life.

B．The number of bees continues to decrease.

C．The decline of bees affects the production of grain.

D．The pollination work of bees is huge and complicated.

2. What does the underlined word “infeasible” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．Practical

B．Impossible

C．harmful

D．Convenient

3. What does Paragraph 4 suggest?

A．The bee vaccine is hard to develop.

B．Bees will learn skills from the queen.

C．Bees can transfer immunity to each other.

D．The bee vaccine can take effect in the long run.

4. What can be inferred about the vaccine from the last paragraph?

A．It’s applied to all sick bees.

B．It will be delivered to bees by skilled doctors.

C．It works by allowing the queen of bees to take it.

D．It has been put into use and makes many bees survive.

7 . Wildlife experts are reporting increasing numbers of Atlantic blue fin tuna(蓝鳍金枪鱼)in the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantic blue fins are highly prized by the fishing industry. The fish can weigh up to 454 kilograms. Its meat is often used in sushi products sold at Japanese restaurants.

But the Atlantic blue fin has been a concern for wildlife experts. The species was listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Improved law enforcement appears to be helping the Atlantic blue fin recover after years of overfishing. The popular fish all but disappeared from the Gulf of Maine about 10 years ago. This year, fishers set a record by catching 30 Atlantic blue fins. One of the fish weighed 363 kilograms.

International regulators have eased the catch limits for U. S. fishermen this year, increasing the quotas (限额)by more than 180,000 kilograms. But environmental groups warn increasing the new limits will undo years of wildlife protection efforts.

Scientists have been unable to determine whether or not the Atlantic blue fin population has recovered, so any decrease in the population now is bad for fishermen in the long term.

Blue fin has been at the center of a long battle between the fishing industry and environmentalists. Fishermen can make large amounts of money from a single fish. Environmentalists seek to protect the Atlantic blue fin. Yet many consumers are willing to pay high prices to eat them.

Walt Golet, a professor of marine biology at the University of Maine, says “Probably no other fish has been more politicized than the Atlantic blue fin tuna. From an environmental point of view it's always … Let's try to back off a little bit and make sure that we always have enough fish, and on the other side, we have individuals and organizations that they're making a living out of that fish and that's kind of where the assessment and management come into play. It's kind of balancing all of those opinions and viewpoints.”

1. What do we know about the Atlantic blue fin?

A．It is a treasure in fishing industry.

B．Its meat is sold well in Japan.

C．It is an endangered species.

D．It has recovered after 10 years of overfishing.

2. What does the underlined word “undo” in Paragraph 4 mean?

A．Ban.

B．Ruin.

C．Undertake.

D．Disapprove.

3. What do environmentalists think of the new catch limits?

A．Helpful.

B．Hopeless.

C．Successful.

D．Unfavorable.

4. Which of the following statements best matches Walt Colant’s point?

A．The environmental point of view should be respected.

B．The battle between experts and fishermen will last forever.

C．The balance between all those opinions should be achieved.

D．Individuals and organizations have the right to catch fish.

8 . My work started in 2003 at my local animal shelter’s Adoption Department. It seems like such a long time ago. In the 13 years that have passed, more than 50,000 animals have passed the doors of the shelter. Most of them, I do not remember. But occasionally there are animals who stand out. Tabby was one such animal.

Tabby was one of the many homeless dogs. What’s more, she was blind and deaf. Tabby’s chances at adoption seemed remote at best. But one day a woman named Loretta came to the shelter. Her son, Gary, who suffered from epilepsy (癫痫) had seen Tabby’s picture on the shelter’s website. They were interested in meeting her! Most boys would want a puppy, a dog who could grow with him and run through grassy fields on summer days. Tabby would never be able to do that. But as they say, "love is blind". After meeting her, they decided to adopt Tabby!

If Tabby’s story had simply ended with her successful adoption, it would still have been something very special indeed but it was what happened after her adoption that some might label as "magical" or perhaps even miraculous. As Gary and Tabby did everything together, they became so "in tune" with one another that Tabby began to telegraph Gary’s seizures (疾病发作) before they occurred, giving his family a warning that one was about to strike. What’s more, Gary seemed to be having fewer and fewer seizures since Tabby’s arrival.

How could it be? There are some things that happen in this world that challenge all logic and understanding. Sometimes, the best that we can do is to accept a miraculous thing, which we didn’t attempt to explain. Because when you try to explain it, you lose the beauty and wonder of it all.

1. Which sentence can be used to describe Tabby?

A．She was so lovely that she could be easily adopted.

B．She suffered a lot from the disease-epilepsy.

C．She was so strong that she could run very fast.

D．She was homeless and couldn’t see or hear.

2. What does the underlined word "miraculous" in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Amazing.

B．Typical.

C．Interesting.

D．Special.

3. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Gary learnt about Tabby from a magazine.

B．Gary was cured in the company of Tabby.

C．Tabby could indicate a seizure before it struck.

D．Most boys would have the same decision as Gary.

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

A．Love is Blind: a Miraculous Dog	B．Give Me Food: My Dear Master
C．Love is Everywhere: a Poor Dog	D．Take Me Home: My Dear Boy