1 . Laundry day isn’t exactly fun for most people, but it can be quite unpleasant for the Earth. Washing clothes can release microplastics that are accumulating in the world’s waterways at alarming rates.
·Choose efficient machines
The machines you use have a significant effect on the amount of energy and water you save or waste.
·
Avoid small loads, but don’t crowd a machine, which can make it work harder. And take a look at the amount of detergent(洗涤剂)you’re using. The extra detergent will be harder to clean out, extending washing and drying times.
·Read up on green products
Companies large and small have met consumer demand for products with no harsh chemicals.
A.Wash clothes by hand |
B.Rethink your laundry habits |
C.They use less energy than standard models |
D.Older appliances can waste many resources |
E.But not all products are what they claim to be |
F.Two to three tablespoons for detergents are enough |
G.Luckily it’s getting easier to clean your clothes while staying green |
Wang Tianchang and his family moved into the Gobi Desert 22 years ago. They have been fighting with the desert ever since,
As
Now, although Wang is suffering from serious health
3 . Imagine a new smartphone product. It works the same as any other smartphone, but when dropped, those cracks that appear after an annoying fall slowly begin to fade away, and the phone magically repairs itself、A team of researchers led by chemistry professor Takuzo Aida have found a way to create self-repairing plastics that can be used in smartphones, cars and other products. But their new plastics won’t only be used to create unbreakable products, but also help the fight against growing wastes harming the planet.
91% of plastic is non-recyclable and filling Earth with waste. The increasing plastic in landfills is a growing concern due to its negative environmental impact. In 2019 about only9% of plastics were recycled globally, leading Japanese scientists to seek to find plastic that can start its own formation or self-repair.
The self-repairing plastics are made by adding a tiny amount of a specialized substance into ordinary plastic to hold the monomers (单体) together by hydrogen bonds (氢键). When the new plastic is broken down by heat, instead of burning to waste, the hydrogen bonds mix and allow for the formation of special shaped monomers to create a foundation for more monomers to layer on and rebuild itself. The team found that their self-healing plastic was able to automatically repair at room temperature over an hour to regain its durability.
The team’s work suggests great prospects for the future of plastic. “The technique could lead to the development of a made-to-last plastic that does not need to be recycled,” lead professor Aida said at the conference, “and can one day be in products from smartphones to cars and even buildings.”
1. What is the special feature of the new plastics?A.Hard to break. | B.Cheap to produce. |
C.Good to health. | D.Easy to recycle. |
A.Global warming. | B.Industrial needs. |
C.Economic crisis. | D.Green awareness. |
A.Its social effect. | B.Its main function. |
C.Its working principle. | D.Its economic value. |
A.Doubtful. | B.Favorable. | C.Disapproving. | D.Unconcerned. |
4 . The San Diego County Water Authority has an unusual plan to use the city’s scenic San Vicente Reservoir (水库) to store solar power so it’s available after sunset. The project could help unlock America’s clean energy future.
Perhaps ten years from now, if all goes smoothly, large underground pipes will connect this lake to a new reservoir, a much smaller one, built in a nearby valley about 1100 feet higher. When the sun is high in the sky, California’s abundant solar power will pump water into that upper reservoir. It’s a way to store the electricity. When the sun goes down and solar power disappears, operators would open a valve (阀门) and the force of 8 million tons of water, falling back downhill through those same pipes, would drive machines capable of producing 500 megawatts of electricity for up to eight hours. That’s enough to power 130, 000 typical homes.
“It’s a water battery!” says Neena Kuzmich, Deputy Director of Engineering for the water authority. She says energy storage facilities like these will be increasingly important as California starts to rely more on energy from wind and solar, which produce electricity on their own schedules, without considering the demands of consumers.
Californians learned this during a heat wave this past summer. “Everybody in the state of California got a text message at 5:30 in the evening to turn off their appliances,” Kuzmich says. The sun was going down, solar generation was disappearing, and the remaining power plants, many of them burning gas, couldn’t keep up with demand. The reminder worked:People stopped using so much power, and the grid (电网) survived.
Yet earlier on that same day, there was so much solar power available that the grid couldn’t take it all. Grid operators turned away more than 2000 megawatt hours of electricity that solar generators could have delivered, enough to power a small city. That electricity was wasted. There was no way to store it for later, when operators desperately needed it.
1. What is the function of Paragraph 2?A.To present the importance of a reservoir. | B.To recall a situation in recent ten years. |
C.To introduce the usage of solar energy. | D.To explain a way to store electricity. |
A.The reservoir serves to store energy. | B.Californians need little solar energy. |
C.People used to waste too much energy. | D.New storage ways are environmentally friendly. |
A.To stop people working. | B.To warn people of danger. |
C.To tell people the sunset time. | D.To remind people of lack of energy. |
A.Scenic San Vicente Reservoir | B.San Diego County Energy Plan |
C.Water Batteries to Store Solar Power | D.Machines to Store Water in California |
5 . A 2018 report found that food waste would increase by a third to 2. 1billion tons by 2030. Beyond the cost of the waste itself,thrown-away food generates a gas that contributes to climate change.
Home delivery meal kits(盒)can reduce food waste by more than two-thirds,but suppliers need to switch to reusable packaging to make them environmentally friendly.
Tailor-made meal kits cut waste by providing people with precise amounts of fresh ingredients(烹饪原料)for chosen recipes,meaning leftovers are minimized. But while the delivery services score well on reducing food waste,buying the same food ingredients from the supermarket almost always saves energy overall simply because meal kits use so much single-use packaging. The good news is that if people have meals that are tailored for consumption,they won’t overbuy and have less food waste. They fine-tune the amount of food to what they will actually eat.
Meal kits can reduce transport emissions(排放)if people go to the supermarket less frequently. If people only go and buy such goods as soap and toilet paper,they may only have to visit once every couple of months. A delivery truck can carry meals for a lot of people in the neighborhood. So dozens of car trips might be replaced with one truck trip.
However,study found that even if delivery meal kits reduced food waste to zero,they would still use up more energy overall than buying the same food from the supermarket unless the energy used for the meal kit packaging was cut by a fifth. The packaging is a killer if it’s single-use and thrown away,which can make all the environmental benefits lost. But if the packaging can be reused,if it’s glass bottles,like in the old days,we can get some benefits.
1. What can we learn about home delivery meal kits?A.They can cut down on daily expenses. |
B.They will totally solve the problem of food waste. |
C.They can keep energy consumption to a minimum. |
D.They will benefit the environment with reusable packaging. |
A.Attach. | B.Adjust. |
C.Raise. | D.Compare. |
A.reduce transport emissions | B.save more food |
C.shop only in the supermarket | D.shorten car trip distances |
A.Supportive. | B.Unfavorable. |
C.Objective. | D.Indifferent. |
1. 活动目的;
2. 活动详情;
3. 活动反响。
注意:
1. 写作词数应为80左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
A Volunteer Activity
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7 . Plastic is low-cost and long-lasting. It is not easily degraded(降解) because natural degradation processes can’t deal with its chemical components(成分). It takes in other ocean-present harmful substances. These chemical and dangerous components are gradually got into the atmosphere with additives such as color, which turns out to be really harmful when the plastic breaks down.
The design and development of new plastic products was sped up after World War II. Life without plastic seemed impossible in the modern age. But even though plastic was quite convenient, the dark side of it was seen as people began to enjoy the throw-away community. Many plastic products, such as plastic bags, have a lifetime of a few minutes to hours. However, they’ll stay in the environment for hundreds of years. We are destroying the very world that nurtured us.
Just 9% of plastic has been recycled and 12% burnt after production rose in the 1950s, which leave s about 79% of the 8.3 billion tons produced sitting in landfills(垃圾填埋场) or damaging our fields, oceans, and waterways. And each year the plastic ends up as contaminants. So to beat plastic pollution, we need to work together.
While plastic burning reduces the amount of waste dumped into oceans and lands, harmful gases are still produced, which also leads to greenhouse gases. However, if we make a firm decision and use modern waste management methods, we will be able to create a safe and healthy world. It is high time that we as responsible global citizens, took on the duty of protecting our environment and made great effort in saving our mother earth, instead of just leaving everything to our government. So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s make a promise to successfully deal with plastic waste and protect our world from all possible risks.
1. What is Paragraph 1 mainly about?A.The harm of plastic. | B.The convenience of plastic. |
C.The protection of plastic. | D.The use of plastic. |
A.Happy. | B.Worried. | C.Excited. | D.Relaxed. |
A.Things that cause pollution. | B.Things that produce plastic. |
C.Things that cost money. | D.Things that help people. |
A.A short story. | B.A speech. | C.A newspaper. | D.A notice. |
8 . The African penguin lives on St. Croix island off the east coast of South Africa. A new study has found that they are leaving their natural environment to escape noisy ship refueling (补给燃料) activities.
The African penguins once mainly raised babies on this island. But the population has dropped sharply since South Africa started permitting ships in the area to refuel at sea six years ago, the study found.
Lorien Pichegru is acting director of the Coastal and Marine Research Institute at Nelson Mandela University, which led the study. She said the organization had found that noise levels in the area had doubled since the refueling activities began. Scientists say high noise levels affect the ability of penguins to find and catch other animals for food. Noise also makes it more difficult for them to communicate with each other and map travel paths. “This year we are at 1,200 breeding pairs at St Croix from 8,500 pairs in 2016,” Pichegru said.
The study recently appeared in the publication Science of the Total Environment. The researchers said the study is the first to explore the effects of ocean traffic noise pollution on a seabird.
Nelson Mandela University’s study collected some data to estimate underwater noise from passing ships. Oil-covered penguins were found in 2019 in Algoa Bay after an oil spill from ship-to-ship refueling. Environmental groups have called for the activities to be banned in the bay.
Pichegru said penguins in the area were already struggling to survive because of a series of issues, including industrial fishing activities. She added that the refueling activities did not kill all the penguins. However, “It was just the thing that made the whole ecology tip over and then the penguins couldn’t cope with that,” she said.
1. What has the new study found about penguins?A.They have difficulty in raising babies. | B.They can get used to noisy ships easily. |
C.Their population is on the increase. | D.They are forced to leave the natural environment. |
A.The value of Lorien Pichegru’s job. | B.The importance of ship refueling activities. |
C.The ability of Penguins to find food. | D.Bad effects of noises on Penguins. |
A.The penguins should be put in control. |
B.Fishing activities should be greatly encouraged. |
C.Refueling activities should be strictly managed. |
D.The penguins should develop their survival abilities. |
A.A diary. | B.A guidebook. | C.A textbook. | D.A magazine. |
To change bad habits is never easy, even with many
Then what is causing the increase in the global average surface temperature? Climate scientists often mention a key climate process called the “greenhouse effect”,
10 . Tropical (热带的) forests could become so hot that some kinds of leaves will no longer be able to conduct photosynthesis (光 合 作用), according to a study. The photosynthetic machinery in tropical trees begins to fail at about 46.7℃ on average. The research suggests that forests may be nearing dangerous temperature sooner than expected. Models predict that once we hit a global temperature increase of 3.9℃, these forests might experience mass leaf damage.
Chris Doughty, an associate professor at Northern Arizona University and the lead researcher of the study, said the leaf-warming experiments had revealed a nonlinear rise in temperatures. “We were really surprised that when we warmed leaves by 2, 3 or 4℃, the highest leaf temperatures actually increased by 8℃. This shows a concerning nonlinear feedback that we were not expecting.” said Doughty. “If we adopt a do-nothing response to climate change and tropical forest air temperatures increase by greater than 4℃, there could be massive leaf death.” he added.
Avoiding high emissions (排放) in the first place is key to stabilizing temperatures. “We should do all we can to avoid high-emissions. Under low-emissions, almost all tropical forest tree leaves can avoid death from overheating and the trees will survive,” said Simon Lewis, a professor of global change science at University College London. “Yet what the study doesn’t look at is heatwaves. We still might see tree deaths from overheating for limited periods during heatwaves under lower emissions.”
Researchers suggest that the damage is not yet unchanged. “Vote for people who are serious about addressing climate change and transferring to low-carbon economies, ”Disney, one researcher, advocated. More generally, we can all recognize the importance of supporting those countries and people who live in and rely on tropical forests economically, But the serious changes to tropical forests don’t just affect the local people it’s a global issue.
1. Which of the following can best replace the underlined word “nonlinear” in Paragraph 2?A.Global. | B.Dramatic. | C.Steady. | D.Minor. |
A.Planting more trees. | B.Exploring heatwaves. |
C.Conducting researches. | D.Pursuing low emissions. |
A.Promoting global efforts. |
B.Seeking economic support. |
C.Helping tropical countries. |
D.Boosting low-carbon education. |
A.Global warming harms trees. |
B.Tropical forests lose functions. |
C.Tropical leaves struggle in heat. |
D.Forests near dangerous temperature. |