1 . Across the world, humans purchase around 1.3 billion single-use plastic water bottles a day. Because only about 9% of plastic is recycled, the vast majority of those bottles wind up in landfills, the ocean, or elsewhere in nature.
When beach-loving Madison noticed those plastic bottles during her family’s trips to California, the 12-year-old “just felt like this needed to change,” she told Smithsonian Magazine.
So as she began thinking about what to do for her school science fair back in 2021, the idea of a project centered on reducing plastic pollution quickly came to her mind: she would design an eatable water bottle called the Eco-Hero.
“One of my biggest ambitions for my project was wanting to help the world,” the confident young inventor said in a video on the website.
To bring her idea to life, Madison built upon the already established method by experimenting with common food materials. She also took inspiration from previous versions of eatable water bottles, though she focused on making hers bigger and more durable. She found that the combination of water, lemon juice, natural gum, and Alginic acid (褐藻酸) resulted in a gel pouch that wouldn’t break, could hold up to 3/4 cup of water, and would last in the fridge for three weeks.
Though she’d like to improve the Eco-Hero by making it able to hold more water, she believes her current version would work well as a replacement for the paper cups used by runners in races. All one needs to do is bite a hole in the water ball, drink the water, and then eat the pouch or throw it away to biodegrade.
Madison hopes the Eco-Hero inspires others to take better care of the planet. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be in a big way,” she told Smithsonian. “People can still make a difference in the world, even if it’s just in a small way.”
1. What inspired Madison’s design of an eatable water bottle?A.Her school’s task. | B.Her family’s urge. |
C.Her love for nature. | D.Her trips to the beach. |
A.It is a copy of the previous versions. |
B.It is made from unbreakable materials. |
C.It is an improvement in size and durability. |
D.It has a hole and should be disposed once used. |
A.Ambitious and creative. | B.Talented and determined. |
C.Courageous and confident. | D.Cooperative and committed. |
A.A good beginning is half done. | B.Small people make big moves. |
C.Where there is a will, there is a way. | D.God helps those who help themselves. |
2 . With an abundance of sun and wind, Spain is positioning itself as Europe’s future leader in green hydrogen production to clean up heavy industries. But some energy experts express caution because this process relies on massive availability of zero-carbon electricity.
Green hydrogen is created when renewable energy sources power an electrical current that runs through water, separating its hydrogen and oxygen molecules (分子). The process doesn’t produce planet-warming carbon dioxide, but less than 0.1% of global hydrogen production is currently created in this way.
The separated hydrogen can be used in the production of steel, ammonia (氨) and chemical products, all of which require industrial processes that are harder to stop fossil fuels. Hydrogen also can be used as a transportation fuel, which could one day transform the highly polluting shipping and aviation sectors.
Spain’s large, windswept and thinly populated territory receives more than 2,500 hours of sunshine on average per year, providing ideal conditions for wind and solar energy, and therefore green hydrogen production.
“If you look at where hydrogen is going to be produced in Europe in the next million years, it’s in two countries, Spain and Portugal,” said Thierry Lepercq, the founder and president of HyDeal Ambition, an industry platform bringing together 30 companies. “Hydrogen is the new oil.”
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1. Why are some experts cautious about green hydrogen production in Spain?A.It needs large amounts of sun and wind. | B.It has an effect on heavy industries. |
C.It causes conflicts among countries. | D.It uses lots of zero-carbon electricity. |
A.Ideal geographical conditions. | B.The support from government. |
C.Hydrogen production technology. | D.Well-developed public transports. |
3 . 全球水资源日益匮乏。假设你是校学生会主席李华,在3月22日“世界水日”来临之际,请你代表学生会向全校学生发出保护水资源的倡议。
内容包括:1. 倡议原因;
2. 保护措施。
注意:1. 写作词数应为100左右;
2. 可以适当增加细节,以使行文连贯。
Dear fellow students,
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The Students’ Union
4 . The world’s most famous tire (轮胎) graveyard (坟地) of 42 million tires in the sands of Kuwait is finally being cleaned up and recycled. This news in itself would be a major relief to locals who have to suffer from the clouds of black smoke arising during fires. But the government isn’t stopping there. They are aiming to create a green city of 25,000 homes in line with a post-oil Persian Gulf, with a focus on sustainability and tourism.
The first step is to clear the ground. The Salmiya area, nicknamed “Rubber (橡胶) Mountain”, is formed from hundreds of small mountains of spent tires — a reaction from the one million cars which were added to Kuwait’s roads over the decade.
EPSCO Global General Trading recycling company has opened a recycling plant for the tires, where they’ve been collected, sorted, cut up, and pressed into other materials like rubbery coloured flooring tiles (铺地砖). The plant opened in January of 2021, and can recycle up to 3 million tires a year. The recycled material is then exported out to nearby gulf neighbours and Asia. In the place of the tires will be South Saad Al-Abdullah City, a green city characterizing a new era in the Middle-Eastern country.
Spent tires are a major environmental problem worldwide due to the room they take up and the chemicals they can release.
“We have moved from a difficult stage that was characterized by great environmental risk,” says Oil Minister Mohammed al-Fares. “Today the area is becoming clean and all tires are being removed to begin the launch of the project of Saad Al-Abdullah city.”
Expected to cost €3.3 billion and require 30 years to complete, the city hopes to feature green technology, probably like the kind one can see in other cities on the Persian Gulf, both existing and not. Saudi Arabia is planning to build a zero-emissions, car-less future city that’s centered around access to big data rather than water or crops.
1. Why is the Salmiya area called “Rubber Mountain”?A.It is rich in rubber. | B.It has too many waste tires. |
C.It used to be a mountain. | D.It has been a tradition. |
A.A recycling company. | B.The purpose for removing tires. |
C.How to build a green city. | D.What is done with the spent tires. |
A.To make a prediction. | B.To explain an idea. | C.To present a fact. | D.To analyze a cause. |
A.The Transformation of a Huge Landfill | B.Spent Tires, a Big Threat to the Environment |
C.The Salmiya Area’s Measures to Kick Pollution | D.Kuwait Tire Mountain to Be into a Green City |
5 . 400 million tons of plastic are generated annually, most of which comes from single-use plastic While countries are making progress in reducing this waste through paper bags and straws, there are still applications where the properties of plastic are necessary.
Transparent (透明的) wood is an alternative for such applications and is highly preferred since it prevents the harm of petroleum-derived (石油衍生的) plastic products. German scientist Siegfried Fink first created transparent wood in the year 1992, and over the past three decades it has been significantly improved by other researchers as well.
In its natural form, wood is not transparent. However, researchers have found that removing lignin, a naturally occurring biopolymer that provides structural support for the plant tissue, can make it transparent. To do so, the wood is soaked in a warm solution consisting of multiple chemicals, followed by boiling it in another solution. This removes the lignin completely and turns the wood white. However, the space that was occupied by lignin needs to be filled up to maintain structural integrity. This process is done by using a resin (树脂) at a temperature of 185 Fahrenheit (85℃).
The final product can have as much as 90 transparency, and it doesn’t break easily. More importantly, it is more biodegradable than glass or plastic.
While transparent wood isn’t commercial yet, it has been employed in a wide variety of applications ranging from construction to energy storage, making flexible electronics and packaging.
The researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology ( IIT) conducted a life-cycle analysis (LCA) of transparent wood to determine the environmental impact of its production and end-of-life (EOL) cycle. The study found that using hydrogen peroxide for delignification, followed by using epoxy for infiltration, was the most eco-friendly. When scaled up for industrial production, the former method would lower electricity consumption by as much as 98. 8 percent.
EOL analysis showed that transparent wood had a reduced ecological impact compared to polyethylene (聚乙烯), paving the way for it to be commercially adapted to replace the petroleum-based material.
1. Why is transparent wood preferred compared to plastic?A.It is easier to make. | B.It is environmentally friendly. |
C.It can be used longer. | D.It can be used repeatedly. |
A.The natural form of wood. | B.The importance of chemicals. |
C.How transparent wood is made. | D.How lignin keeps wood strong. |
A.It can be recycled. |
B.It will replace plastic soon. |
C.The most eco-friendly way to produce it. |
D.Potential damage caused by it to the environment. |
A.Promising. | B.Difficult. | C.Profitable. | D.Uncertain. |
6 . Climate change is causing more areas to turn into deserts. This issue is affecting the lives of 250 million people as land that used to be good for farming becomes dry and unproductive. Around one-third of the world’s land is impacted, including regions in Africa, southern Europe, Asia and America.
Sand to Green is a Moroccan company that can transform a patch of desert into a sustainable (可持续的) and profitable plantation in five years, according to Wissal Ben Moussa, its co-founder and chief agricultural officer. The solution is using agroforestry (农林业)to create a new kind of agriculture that is sustainable and that can be resilient (有适应力的) in front of climate change.
The system can be set up close to any source of salty water, which Sand to Green cleans using energy from the sun. It then grows different types of fruit trees and plants together in the same area—a method called mixed planting—and waters the plants’ roots directly with the cleaned water, to reduce water loss to the air. The soil is regenerated using what Sand to Green calls “green manure”, a mixture that includes compost, biochar(生物炭)and microorganisms that help the soil “wake up”. Biochar is a form of charcoal that can help dry soil hold on to water.
In a five-hectare trial in southern Morocco that’s been running since 2017, Sand to Green has tried out a variety of plants in search of the best performers. Among the intercropping herbs (草本植物) that have been successfully trialed are rosemary, geranium, vetiver and citronella, which Ben Moussa describes as “very low-maintenance and very high-profit”.
Sand to Green is now working to scale up to a 20-hectare commercial site, also in southern Morocco. It says a site of that size would cost around $475,000 to set up and would start bringing financial returns in about five years.
According to Ben Moussa, with this system they create biodiversity, which means better soil, healthier crops and a bigger yield. The plantation can generate 1.5 times more yield, thus making more money than a farm that grows only one type of crop in the same space.
1. What phenomenon does the author describe in paragraph 1?A.Deforestation. | B.Desertification. |
C.Global warming. | D.Urbanization. |
A.To preserve the crop’s survival rate. |
B.To protect water from pollution. |
C.To make a new type of soil. |
D.To help people adapt to climate change. |
A.It aims to plant more trees. |
B.It earns a good reputation. |
C.It develops new plants. |
D.It produces good results. |
A.Expand. | B.Object. | C.Refer. | D.Prefer. |
7 . I’ve been worried about climate change my whole life. In my childhood I
This
My own footprint started out at a
A.declared | B.doubted | C.acknowledged | D.assumed |
A.defeated | B.recovered | C.fixed | D.preserved |
A.grown-up | B.passer-by | C.parent | D.leader |
A.turning to | B.relying on | C.picking on | D.appealing to |
A.impatient | B.disappointed | C.popular | D.familiar |
A.transformed | B.guided | C.reminded | D.shocked |
A.disturbed | B.concerned | C.convinced | D.supported |
A.urgent | B.direct | C.casual | D.flexible |
A.cut | B.leave | C.document | D.remove |
A.events | B.choices | C.experiments | D.lessons |
A.shared | B.identified | C.announced | D.explained |
A.normal | B.rising | C.safer | D.lower |
A.Imagine | B.Consider | C.Quit | D.Dislike |
A.otherwise | B.thus | C.furthermore | D.instead |
A.local | B.beautiful | C.remote | D.clean |
8 . A grocery store in Ann Arbor, Michigan opened on Tuesday to the public. This is an artist’s uneatable creation. The Plastic Bag Store presents shelves filled with items such as meat, eggs, cakes and so on, all of which are made from single-use plastics taken from streets and garbage.
The store at times during the day will be transformed into a stage for a series of short films in which puppetry (木偶戏表演), shadow play, and handmade sets are used to tell a story of how the overabundance of plastic waste we leave behind might be misinterpreted by future generations — and how what we value least may become our most lasting “cultural legacy (遗产)”.
Theater and film director Robin Frohardt is the creative driving force behind the Plastic Bag Store. “I got the idea many years ago after watching someone bag and double-bag and triple-bag my groceries,” Frohardt said on Tuesday. “I just was sort of struck by how much packaging was involved in our everyday lives. And it just seemed so unreasonable. I just thought, maybe I could set up a project to change it.” Combining a real-life supermarket with film experience, Frohardt planned to use art and humor to question our culture of consumption and convenience and to show one of the greatest problems of our planet.
Plastic bags are created by fossil (化石) fuels and often end up as waste in landfills and the ocean. Americans throw away 100 billion plastic grocery bags per year. She hopes that she can continue to tour with the project and bring it to different communities. “My dream would be that this project will become unnecessary one day,” said Frohardt.
“Frohardt’s work reminds us, with humor, to think not just about the next two weeks, but also about the next two decades and the next two centuries. What will remain hundreds of years later? We hope that our legacy will be plays rather than piles of plastics,” said Tim Tompkins, President of Times Square Alliance.
1. What are the things in the Plastic Bag Store like?A.Decorative. | B.Recyclable. | C.Dirty. | D.Artificial. |
A.Appeal to people to recycle plastic. | B.Call attention to harm of plastic waste. |
C.Change people’s consumption concept. | D.Show achievements of plastic recycling. |
A.Her film experiences. | B.Short films at the store. |
C.Overuse of plastic bags. | D.Concern for overconsumption. |
A.Meaningful. | B.Challenging. | C.Imaginative. | D.Impractical. |
9 . Coral reefs are the rainforests of the ocean. They exist on vast scales and are equally important havens(避风港)of biodiversity. Reefs occupy 0.1% of the oceans.
Research groups around the world are coming up with plans of action to see if that will help, such as identifying naturally heat-resistant corals and cross-breeding such corals to create a new type.
Doubters doubt humanity will get its act together in time to make much difference.
This mix of natural activity and human intervention is important.
A.Corals are useful to people. |
B.But there are grounds for optimism. |
C.And they host a quarter of marine species. |
D.It could serve as a blueprint for other ecosystems. |
E.Coral’s global ecosystem services are worth up to $10trn a year. |
F.This research can also be brought to bear on trying to save entire ecosystems. |
G.However, the assisted evolution of corals does not meet with universal enthusiasm. |
10 . 阅读下面材料,根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段,使之构成一篇完整的短文。
In a small community located at a suburb of Exeter, a disheartening issue had been troubling the neighborhood for years. The once pleasant surroundings were ruined by piles of waste that seemed to multiply with each passing day. Residents were growing tired of the worsening environment, leading many to abandon their homes in search of cleaner neighborhoods. It was in this terrible situation that two young students, Emma and Mia, decided to take matters into their own hands.
Emma and Mia were classmates and best friends from Phillips Exeter Academy, both passionate about environmental preservation and deeply concerned about the pollution crisis their community was facing. Witnessing more and more neighbors’ leaving, they knew they couldn’t stand by any longer. Determined to bring about a change, they undertook a mission that would soon catch the attention of the entire community.
Their journey began with thorough research and planning. The two girls searched carefully on the Internet for information on environmental initiatives and connected with local environmentalists. They organized meetings with residents to understand the issues at hand, collecting data on the types of waste, the sources, and the areas most affected. Armed with this knowledge, Emma and Mia worked out a comprehensive plan and announced it to ask for opinions from the residents. Surprisingly it was strongly supported.
Their strategy was twofold. First, they initiated a waste classification and recycling program. They distributed recycling bins(回收箱) to every household and educated the community about the importance of responsible waste management. Soon, the streets began to show signs of improvement as the volume of garbage inappropriately thrown away decreased gradually.
The second part of their plan was more ambitious. Emma and Mia gathered volunteers from their school and the neighborhood to take part in a massive clean-up campaign. Armed with gloves and trash(垃圾)bags, they began systematically clearing the waste from the streets, parks, and even the local bodies of water. Their firm commitment and hard work inspired others to join the cause.
注意:
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式作答。
Half a year later, the changes were significant.
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Emma and Mia received recognition and honors for their work.
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