1 . A five-year-old dog named Kelsey has been praised as a hero for helping to save the life of her owner who slipped in the snow and broke his neck.
The man, Bob, was alone when he left his farmhouse on New Year’s Eve to collect firewood.Expecting a journey of only several meters, Bob was wearing just long johns (衬裤), a shirt and slippers when he went outside, although the temperature was around －4℃.
After the accident, he was unable to move in the snow. Fortunately, Kelsey came to his assistance.
“I was shouting for help, but my nearest neighbor is about 400 meters away, and it was 10:30 p. m.,” Bob explained. “By the next morning, my voice was gone and I couldn’t yell for help, but Kelsey didn’t stop barking.”
Kelsey’s companion kept him warm by lying on top of him. She licked his face and hands to keep him awake. “Kelsey kept barking but never left my side,” Bob recalled. “I knew I couldn’t give up and that it was my choice to stay alive.”
Bob spent 20 hours in the freezing cold. When he finally lost consciousness, his dog kept barking. Finally, hearing the barking, Bob’s neighbor discovered him at 6:30 p. m. on New Year’s Day and called the emergency services at once. When Bob arrived in hospital, his body temperature was below 21℃. However, doctors were surprised to find that he didn’t have any frostbite (冻疮). They believed it was because of Kelsey’s determination to keep him warm. Dr. Chaim Colen, the doctor who treated Bob, said, “His dog really saved him.He was very fortunate.”
Bob said he was very grateful to both Dr. Colen and his Kelsey. “They saved my life. They are truly heroes!”
1. What happened to Bob on New Year’s Eve?| A．He left his dog alone in his farmhouse. |
| B．He was praised for saving a dog owner. |
| C．He broke his neck and couldn’t move. |
| D．He heard his neighbor’s shouting for help. |
| A．To keep warm. |
| B．To stay alive. |
| C．To keep Bob awake. |
| D．To seek help from others. |
| A．Helpful. | B．Fortunate. |
| C．Grateful. | D．Friendly. |
| A．A Neckbreaking Accident |
| B．The Magic Night |
| C．Warmth on a Winter’s Night |
| D．Determination to Keep Alive |
2 . In the 12th century, physician Ibn Zuhr conducted some animal research to assess the surgical procedures that could be applied to humans. Since then, animal testing has been considered the most efficient way to develop new drugs. New medical treatments and drugs are tested on animals first to determine their effectiveness or safety levels before they are finally tested on humans. However, it remains controversial whether it is morally right or wrong to use animals for experiments.
The use of animals for medical purposes is seen to be necessary by many scientists. Researchers usually begin their trials using rats. If the tests are successful, further tests are done on monkeys before using human beings. For testing, such tiered(分层的) rounds are important because they reduce the level of error and negative side effects. Some argue that animal testing has contributed to many life-saving cures and treatments and there is no adequate alternative to testing on a living, whole-body system. Moreover, there are regulations for animal testing that limit the misuse of animals during research. They serve as evidence that animals are well taken care of and treated well instead of being intentionally harmed.
However, some other experts and animal welfare groups have opposed such practice, considering it as inhumane(不人道的) and claiming it should be banned. According to Humane Society International, animals used in experiments are commonly subjected to force-feeding, radiation exposure, operations to deliberately cause damage and frightening situations to create depression and anxiety. They also hold the view that animals are very different from human beings and therefore are poor test subjects. Drugs that pass animal tests are not necessarily safe. Animal tests on the arthritis (关节炎) drug Vioxx showed it would have a protective effect on the hearts of mice, yet the drug went on to cause about 27,000 heart attacks before being pulled back from the market.
It’s safe to say that using animals for tests will continue to be debated in many years to come. Despite the benefits of animal testing, some of the concerns need to be addressed with adequate regulations to ensure that animals are treated humanely.
1. Why is animal testing considered necessary?| A．Rats are more similar to humans than monkeys. |
| B．Other testing alternatives may not replace animals. |
| C．Animal testing can show every side effect of drugs. |
| D．Animal testing has been in practice since the 12th century. |
| A．Eating poisonous food. | B．Being killed deliberately. |
| C．Breathing in polluted air. | D．Having unnecessary operations. |
| A．animal testing helps find the cure for arthritis |
| B．some drugs need to be withdrawn from the market |
| C．animals cannot necessarily produce accurate results |
| D．a drug should be tested many more times before its release |
| A．Scientists should reduce the number of animals used in research. |
| B．Experts should try hard to determine whether animal tests are harmful. |
| C．Relevant organizations should show more concern about the animals’ welfare. |
| D．The authorities should issue new laws to guarantee animals’ rights during research. |
3 . In the late 1970s, archaeologists (考古学家) uncovered the remains of a woman and a young dog, her hand resting on the puppy’s chest in a 12,000-year-old village.
The find is some of the earliest evidence of the bond between humans and dogs. But even after years of study researchers are divided on how this bond began. Did it arise over thousands of years, as early dogs became tamer (驯服的) and more accustomed to human behaviors? Or was this fire already burning in the ancestors of dogs: the gray wolf?
Christina Hansen Wheat, a behavioral ecologist at Stockholm University, and workmates hand-raised 10 gray wolves from the time they were 10 days old. When the animals were 23 weeks old, a caregiver led them one at a time into a mostly empty room. Over the course of several minutes, the caregiver exited and entered the room, sometimes leaving the wolf alone, sometimes leaving it with a complete stranger. The team repeated the experiment with 12 23-week-old Alaskan huskies (哈士奇), which they’d raised similarly since puppyhood.
For the most part, the scientists saw few differences between the wolves and the dogs. When their caregiver entered the room, both species scored 4.6 on a five-point scale of “greeting behavior”—a desire to be around the human. When the stranger entered, dog greeting behavior dropped to 4.2 and wolf to 3.5, on average, suggesting both animals made a distinction between the person they knew and the one they didn’t. It’s this distinction that the team counts as a sign of attachment.
In addition, dogs barely paced—a sign of stress—during the test, while wolves paced at least part of the time. However, the wolves stopped pacing almost entirely when a stranger left the room and their caretaker returned. Hansen Wheat says that’s never been seen before in wolves. It could be a sign, she says, that the animals view the humans who raised them as a “social buffer”.
For her, that’s the most interesting part of the study. “If this is true, this sort of attachment is not what separates dogs from wolves,” she says. In other words, it didn’t have to be bred into them by humans, but could have been the seed we selected for, and then strengthened over thousands of years.
1. What’s the purpose of Hansen Wheat’s experiment?| A．To find out what makes gray wolves and dogs different. |
| B．To explain the reasons why humans raised dogs from ancient times. |
| C．To argue gray wolves after being tamed are easier to keep than dogs. |
| D．To prove whether gray wolves can make doglike attachment to people. |
| A．Researchers began to raise gray wolves from their birth. |
| B．Researchers used equal numbers of gray wolves and dogs. |
| C．Gray wolves felt more stressful than dogs when a stranger came. |
| D．“Greeting behavior” of the two animals was significantly different. |
| A．A reminder of feeding. | B．A sign of social attachment. |
| C．A source of comfort and support. | D．A warning of stopping pace. |
| A．Dogs are more attached to humans than gray wolves. |
| B．It is the attachment to humans that sets gray wolves apart from dogs. |
| C．The attachment between dogs and humans is the result of being tamed. |
| D．The attachment to humans plays a role in the choice of dogs or gray wolves. |
4 . Alaska’s Yukon River has faced major salmon shortages in recent years. Officials say record-high temperatures last year killed most salmon in the 3,200-kilometer river before the fish were able to reproduce. The losses led Alaska to stop their salmon harvests in 2021 to make sure that enough fish survived to reproduce for another year.
The poor salmon harvests caused major financial losses to private fishing companies in the area. The die-offs also hurt native communities, which traditionally store the fish as a year-round food supply.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Commerce declared a disaster for Yukon River fishing for 2020 and 2021, making aid money available. Alaska has sent emergency fish shipments to areas affected by the salmon shortages.
Scientists have mostly blamed the problems on a series of heat waves in the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean from 2014 to 2019. The warm ocean waters affected salmon’s living in the sea before they returned to lay eggs.
Climate change may also be affecting what the salmon are eating. Fishing experts say young salmon are likely filling up on nutrient-poor food because warmer waters drive away healthier organisms (有机物) they normally feed on. “In my opinion, the salmon are starving with climate change,” said Brooke Woods in the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
The effects of climate change on freshwater environments have also been studied. Vanessa von Biela is a biologist who looked at the rivers, streams and lakes where salmon live. Her team found that Chinook salmon show heat stress at temperatures above 18℃. They start dying above 20℃. In 2019, temperatures on the Alaskan side were above 18℃ for 44 straight days, a recent study found.
The effects of warming waters can be reduced by climate-driven glacier (冰川) runoff, which brings cooler water into rivers and streams. But scientists still expect salmon to begin slowly moving to new areas within Alaska. “Salmon will find a way,” said Biela. “but it’s going to be hard for communities in places where there might not be salmon anymore.”
1. What do the locals rely on salmon for?| A．Food supply. | B．Scientific study. | C．Green tourism. | D．Water improvement. |
| A．Financial losses. | B．Relief funds. | C．Economic growth. | D．Fast delivery. |
| A．No healthy organisms are left there. | B．Salmon there lose the ability to lay eggs. |
| C．Salmon there go short of nutritious food. | D．The temperature remains above 18℃ till now. |
| A．Measures to protect salmon are effective. | B．Salmon will not find a way out of the crisis. |
| C．The amount of salmon will increase greatly. | D．Salmon are likely to leave the river for survival. |
5 . People have been wondering why elephants do not develop cancer even though they have lifespans(寿命)that are similar to humans, living for around 50 to 70 years.
Now scientists believe they know why. A team at the University of Chicago, US has found that elephants carry a large number of genes that stop tumors(肿瘤)developing. To be precise, they found 20 copies of an anti-tumor gene called TP53 in elephants. Most other species, including humans, only carry one copy.
According to the research, the extra copies of the gene improved the animal’s sensitivity to DNA damage, which lets the cells quickly kill themselves when damaged before they can go on to form deadly tumors.
“An increased risk of developing cancer has stood in the way of the evolution of large body sizes in many animals,” the study author Dr Vincent Lynch told The Guardian. If every living cell has the same chance of becoming cancerous(癌变的),large creatures with a long lifespan like whales and elephants should have a greater risk of developing cancer than humans and mice. But across species, the risk of cancer does not show a connection with body mass.
This phenomenon was found by Oxford University scientist Richard Peto in the 1970s and later named “Peto’s paradox(悖论)”. Biologists believe it results from larger animals using protection that many smaller animals do not. In the elephant’s case, the making of TP53 is nature’s way of keeping this species alive.
The study also found that when the same genes were brought to life in mice, they had the same cancer resistance as elephants. This means researchers could use the discovery to develop new treatments that can help stop cancers spreading or even developing in the first place.
“Nature has already figured out how to prevent cancer,” said Joshua Schiffman, a biologist at the School of Medicine, University of Utah, US. “It’s up to us to learn how different animals deal with the problem so that we can use those strategies to prevent cancer in people.”
1. Why are elephants unlikely to develop cancer?| A．Certain genes in their body kill existing tumors. |
| B．They have a rather large body size. |
| C．They carry many genes to prevent tumors developing. |
| D．Their genes suffer no DNA damage. |
| A．The huge body mass. |
| B．Deadly tumors. |
| C．Cells killing themselves. |
| D．Sensitivity to DNA damage. |
| A．The risk of cancer is not related to body size. |
| B．Larger animals have protection from TP53. |
| C．Larger animals suffer the same risk of cancer as smaller ones. |
| D．The larger animals are, the bigger risk of cancer they will have. |
| A．Depending on nature is surely enough to fight against cancer. |
| B．The TP53 genes have proved useful in stopping cancer in people. |
| C．The extra copies of elephants’ genes are used to cure cancer patients. |
| D．Humans are expected to prevent cancer with the making of TP53. |
6 . In France, it is the end of an era. The country used to consider training captive animals to delight humans acceptable. Last month, however, it banned the capture and captive breeding of marine mammals, which include dolphins and orcas. Thus, marine circuses in France will be phased out. The French Environment Minister, Ségolène Royal, cited animal welfare in the decision. She reported that some animals were mistreated in aquariums.
This decision is taking place in a global context of changing attitudes. For decades, marine circuses amazed people with the sight and sound of orcas. These are beautiful and intelligent animals. Marine circuses can be entertaining, and they can educate and inspire awe. Children especially can be taught the value of animals first-hand by seeing their power and majesty (壮丽). However, marine circuses make animals perform in a tank, and even a large tank is not a natural environment for orcas.
This contradiction is best shown in the tragic case of the American trainer Dawn Brancheau. She always felt a strong connection to animals. No doubt she respected them. She was inspired to become an orca trainer by a vacation to SeaWorld Orlando. However, she was ultimately killed by an orca named Tilikum during her show at the same circus in 2010. This was not an isolated case. Captive orcas have often harmed people, and poor Tilikum had been involved in two deaths before. In recent years, a global movement has blamed such incidents on captivity itself. In 2013, a powerful documentary, Blackfish, argued that captivity is distressing for orcas. Public opinion is shifting. By 2016, SeaWorld began to phase out orca breeding and performances.
Royal is famous in France for her concern for children’s development. I trust she has thought carefully about what aquariums could achieve. We must teach children about nature, but that should include respect for animals. In your lives, you can make a difference every time you go to a zoo or an aquarium. Study the animals and their natural environment. Based on what you’ve learned, do you think the animals are healthy and happy? This is how you develop moral maturity. As a mature species, we recognize animal rights. We can learn about our fellow creatures without capturing them.
1. The author was prompted to write this article by ____.| A．the tragic case of the American trainer Dawn Brancheau |
| B．Blackfish, a 2013 documentary |
| C．France’s decision to ban the capture and captive breeding of marine mammals |
| D．SeaWorld’s decision to phase out orca breeding and performances |
| A．disappeared | B．forbidden | C．enhanced | D．dismissed |
| A．people can hardly be delighted by the majesty of marine mammals any longer |
| B．aquariums can hardly help children study animals and their natural environment |
| C．many tragic cases took place in aquariums in recent years |
| D．some marine mammals are mistreated in aquariums |
| A．We must ensure that we don’t deny animals their rights while we learn about them. |
| B．More children should be brought to aquariums to learn about marine animals first-hand. |
| C．Most animals living in zoos and aquariums can enjoy healthy and happy lives. |
| D．Ségolène Royal failed to take children’s development into consideration as she banned the capture and captive breeding of marine animals in French aquariums. |
New Yorkers were shocked in early December when a creature as big as a school bus
Scientists say NYC0089, which hasn't been spotted in several weeks, has likely returned to deeper waters south of the Hudson. Still, the
“With these numbers increasing
Scientists say the
“Seeing more whales in this area is a sign
8 . Seal Island is a 200-meter-long island in South Africa, which is surrounded by 55 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit waters and covered with over 60,000 seals and some birds. This island has been home to many birds and seals. You may think this island is a paradise. In fact, the island is not famous for the seals or birds. However, the real stars are the great white sharks that leap out of the water to catch the seals they are hunting.
You may think that there is no way for a 15-foot long, 3,000-pound shark to hurl its body out of the water and catch a seal in midair. Actually, these sharks are called “Air Jaws”.
Over the years, the seals have gotten smarter. Now, they go out in groups of seven and eight to feed. They swim down on the sea floor, which gives them extra camouflage (掩饰). When they have to swim near the water surface, they swim in a zigzag (之字形的) pattern. But with all these tricks, they can still be outwitted (以智取胜) by the sharks. Usually, the sharks will take one seal away from its group and force it to swim on the surface, where it is easy to hunt. Sometimes, the seal is lucky and gets away, but most of them die in the process of trying to survive.
Every year, tourists go to see these amazing animals leap out of the water, sometimes flinging (抛) their whole bodies into the air when they want to catch the seals. Some people even want to go into shark cages to see the action from below! This is the reason why this island attracts thousands of tourists around the world every year.
1. What probably makes Seal Island famous?| A．The large number of seals in the water. |
| B．The way the great white sharks hunt. |
| C．The beautiful scenery of the island. |
| D．The special position of the island. |
| A．To save energy. |
| B．To warm themselves. |
| C．To look for food. |
| D．To avoid the white sharks. |
| A．White sharks are dangerous animals. |
| B．The seals are cleverer than the white sharks. |
| C．The sharks are successful in hunting the seals. |
| D．It is easier for the sharks to hunt the seals on the sea floor. |
| A．To explain why Seal Island is famous. |
| B．To show how white sharks hunt seals. |
| C．To advise us to visit Seal Island. |
| D．To ask us to protect animals. |
1.大熊猫的习性；
2.大熊猫的象征意义；
3.其他你所了解的关于大熊猫的信息。
注意：1.词数80左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3.开头语已为你写好，不计入总词数。
参考词汇：竹笋bamboo shoots
Dear friends,
It’s a great honor for me to introduce our national treasure — the panda.
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10 . This morning we’re going to head off down into the wetland, a very specific kind of wetland called the Prairie fen.
You can find Nate Fuller counting butterflies. The Sarett Nature Center needs an accurate count of Mitchell’s satyr butterflies to help preserve one of their last known habitats. They’re very particular about the kind of habitat where they can live, which is part of what makes them so rare and amazing indicators for our water quality. Today, Sarett expert Ashley Cole-Wick with Michigan’s Natural Features Inventory helps Fuller count. She says, “When I first started working on the butterfly in 2013,we had 18 populations and in 2019,we had 10.”
The Mitchell’s satyr butterfly went on the endangered species list in 1991.Initially it was thought that loss of wetlands contributed to their decline. Fuller says, “It’s not just habitat availability. The quantity and quality of groundwater coming into these wetlands seem to be a challenge for the butterfly. Nothing has all been sorted out exactly.” While the decline is likely a combination of factors, the fact that water quality might contribute is alarming because the wetlands are the headwaters for the Midwest’s rivers and streams.
A captive breeding program was started four years ago at the Toledo Zoo to help get to the bottom of the mystery. Today Director Ryan Walsh who heads the program says it’s been the only successful captive breeding program. The caterpillars spent the winter in a special weather control room that helped determine the Mitchell’s satyrs don’t do well below 4.4 degrees Celsius. With that knowledge, the program produced 1,300 new eggs, a development that may go a long way toward restoring the population. And if all goes well, may one day the Mitchell’s satyr butterfly earn a ticket off the endangered species list.
1. What are the indicators for the water quality?| A．The habitats. | B．The butterflies. | C．The wetlands. | D．The experts. |
| A．The importance of water quality. |
| B．Actions taken to protect the Mitchell’s satyr butterflies. |
| C．The reasons why the number of Mitchell’s satyr butterflies declines. |
| D．The natural conditions for the Mitchell’s satyr butterflies. |
| A．Preserving. | B．Increasing. | C．Recovering. | D．Controlling. |
| A．It can easily be found. | B．It is not endangered now. |
| C．It will die above 4.4 degrees Celsius. | D．It can be bred by humans |
