1 . The earthworm is widely distributed, with 4000 species in the world and more than 300 species in China, where they are in demand as fishing bait, livestock feed, and components of traditional medicine. Known as “ecosystem engineers,” earthworms also play a vital role in the biogeochemical cycle. They can affect the biological, chemical, and physical processes of the ecosystem. In recent years, poachers in China have started using soil electrocution to capture earthworms, putting earthworm populations and ecosystems at risk. In February, China banned the practice.
In the past, earthworms in China were captured manually, which limited the number that could be caught in a short amount of time and did not threaten the earthworm population or the soil ecosystem. In contrast, applying electric current to the soil can catch about 150 kg of earthworms in a day. Removing earthworms at this scale threatens the species with local extinction and robs the targeted ecosystem of the benefits they provide.
This capture method threatens other species as well. The electric current may kill or harm soil organisms beyond earthworms. The changes could disrupt the food cycle or birds, arthropods, and mammals that depend on earthworms as a food source. The sharp decrease of earthworms in the soil may also affect soil fertility and productivity, reducing crop yields.
Electric earthworm capture has quickly become widespread, because earthworms are not included on the list of protected wild animals in China. There have been few legal punishments for using the approach, despite the damage it causes. In February, the Chinese government took a step to ban electric capture of earthworms and other activities that damage the soil ecosystem. However, the financial benefits of large-scale earthworm poaching may provide poachers with an motivation to continue using electric capture despite the ban. To carry out the ban effectively, China should pass laws that specify how poachers will be punished if they continue to use soil electrocution.
1. What does the author want to convey in the first paragraph?| A．The earthworm is found everywhere. | B．The earthworm is used as fishing bait. |
| C．The earthworm is captured. | D．The earthworm is endangered. |
| A．To give an example | B．To explain a capture method |
| C．To clarify a concept | D．To make a comparison |
| A．Because they want to get a lot of money. | B．Because they like electric capture. |
| C．Because they ignore the ban. | D．Because they hate earthworms. |
| A．China Bans Electric Capture of Earthworms |
| B．Electric Earthworm Capture Became Widespread |
| C．Earthworms Play a Vital Role in the Ecosystem |
| D．Earthworms Are Captured by Soil Electrocution |
2 . Soil creates life from death. The production of more than 95% of the food we eat relies on soil. But this precious resource is eroded (侵蚀) at a global average of 13.5 tons per hectare per year. Instead of nourishing crops, fertile topsoil is washed and blown away, ending up in inconvenient places such as ditches and oceans.
Jo Handelsman and Kayla Cohen try to make readers care about soil in A World Without Soil. Their prologue (前言) takes the form of a letter to the government. With the letter, they hope to make soil management a federal priority. The following chapters cover the basic science of soil as well as the causes and consequences of its erosion. In the last part of the book, the authors turn to possible solutions—many of them simple, and some centuries old. They describe about traditional soil management techniques, including planting diverse crops in rotation (轮种), increasing organic content, ploughing as little as possible, etc. With these techniques, farmers are able to produce rich agricultural production while maintaining deep banks of fertile soil.
Why, then, is fertile soil being allowed to be washed and blown away? The answer, not surprisingly, rests in global capitalism. Farmers’ profit is thin, forcing farmers to plant the highest-profit crop from field to field every season. To ensure food security, Handelsman and Cohen urge the world to demand a real top-down change in how agricultural production is managed. “The burden of protecting soil cannot be shifted to farmers and environmental activists,” they note. Governments must begin to move towards a model in which farmers are less independent business people growing and selling food, and more government-supported land workers managing both food production and soil protection. This should be the core of agriculture.
Our land and soil are too precious to be destroyed by the market price of crops. We must invest deeply and thoughtfully in our farmers so that they can invest deeply and thoughtfully in the land. This is the future of farming.
1. What is the function of paragraph 1?| A．To begin a story. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To warn people of a danger. | D．To mention a fact. |
| A．A letter to the government. |
| B．The future of farming. |
| C．The basic science of soil and the causes and consequences of its erosion. |
| D．Some possible solutions. |
| A．Farmers should invest in the most profitable crops. |
| B．Only environmental activists need to take up the burden of protecting soil. |
| C．The whole world just needs to make a few possible changes in the management of agricultural production. |
| D．Farmers should work the land with the help of government |
| A．Biography | B．Book review |
| C．Planting guidelines | D．A tale |
NASA has got some good news for us. The world is a
NASA researchers compared satellite data (卫星数据) from the mid-1990s to today. They found that global green leaf area
After further
China has carried out programs
4 . Our world’s forests are becoming isolated and broken. In fact, today we have only two remaining continuous forests systems in the world—the Amazon and the Congo. The rest of the world’s forests are becoming separated-kind of like islands.
Why should that concern most of us city dwellers? It turns out that forests affect us in ways more than we can see and experience. If you had your breakfast this morning, blew your nose on a tissue, switched on a light or are reading this article, you have one thing to thank for—the world’s forests and the products they supply us. Forest products are used by us in our daily lives either directly or indirectly. Think of paper and wood—your school textbook, newspaper your parents read, or the furniture you are sitting on. Even for our medicines and cosmetics we depend on forest products.
But that is only one way of looking at it. In another sense, forests are habitats for diverse plant and animal species; many people around the world depend on forests for their livelihood. Forests give us our rivers, help maintain the water cycle, act as a carbon sink and help prevent soil erosion.
For all that forests provide us, humans are using its resources faster than the forests can regain themselves, so much so that we are losing them fast—too fast for our own good! Forests today make up 30% of the land area of the world. But just in the last 50 years, more than one half of the world forests are gone. It is believed that forest areas, about half the size of Singapore, are being lost every day!
Forests don’t disappear in a day. It is gradually eroded (侵蚀) away. The biggest cause is roads and man-made developments, as well as natural events such as wildfires. Did you know that when an area of a forest gets broken-up by artificial barriers, these areas tend to lose about 50% of all their species within a couple of decades?
The areas that are exposed by the disappearing forests now begin to experience extreme temperature, pressure and wind. Now add to it, invasive species that destroy the habitat.
It is in our hands to do something about it. If government officials and local populations can work together to reconnect the mini forests by planting linking trees, it may not be too late to preserve what we already have.
1. Paragraph 2 is mainly about ______.| A．main causes of forest loss | B．benefits of forests in our life |
| C．different kinds of forest products | D．waste of forest products in life |
| A．provide habitats only for humans | B．help speed up soil erosion |
| C．be preserved by planting linking trees | D．disappear on earth all of a sudden |
| A．The blowing of strong wind. | B．The coming of invasive species. |
| C．The natural wildfires. | D．The disappearance of species. |
| A．The Forests Meet with Wildfires |
| B．The Earth Has Many Mini-Forests |
| C．The Forests Are in Great Danger |
| D．The Earth Suffers from the Loss of Its Species |
1. 活动时间和形式；
2. 野生动物面临的严峻形势；
3. 号召同学们保护野生动物。
注意: 1. 词数100左右；
2. 首句已为你写出。
Our club is going to hold a campaign to protect wild animals.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6 . One of Switzerland’s most popular skiing areas has been covering mountain areas with cloth material in an effort to
Putting the blankets
But the Swiss government has predicted that 90 percent of the country’s
Currently, the
| A．reduce | B．defeat | C．flee | D．switch |
| A．leaking | B．detecting | C．losing | D．resisting |
| A．combined with | B．made of | C．mixed with | D．attached to |
| A．ignore | B．float | C．limit | D．block |
| A．over | B．beyond | C．beneath | D．within |
| A．summing up | B．resulting from | C．figuring out | D．carrying on |
| A．sensors | B．warnings | C．structures | D．supplies |
| A．that | B．which | C．where | D．when |
| A．founding | B．remaining | C．obtaining | D．committing |
| A．anything | B．something | C．nothing | D．everything |
| A．continually | B．apparently | C．gradually | D．artificially |
| A．which | B．who | C．that | D．what |
| A．ceasing | B．integrating | C．removing | D．extracting |
| A．reflective | B．relevant | C．vital | D．efficient |
| A．mode | B．atmosphere | C．substance | D．circumstance |
While many people stay up to celebrate the Double Eleven shopping festival, Elsa Tang in Beijing avoids online shopping. Whenever she
In fact, Tang is not the only person
Yu Yuan, 29, is a zero-waster. Five years ago, Yu
The idea of a zero-waste life was first put forward by French author Bea Johnson. Her idea was: Live a life while hardly
增加:在缺词处加一个漏字符号(),并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除:把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。
修改:在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意:1每处错误及其修改均仅限一词;
2.只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
It is generally believed there is a good supply of fresh water. And to our disappointment, the fact was just the opposite.What we know, the world population is growing rapid day by day. So much fresh water is needed to feed so a big population. What's the more, with the development of industry, some factories produce poisonous waste, which consequently results from the pollution of water. It’s high time for we to take quick action to protect water resources. Stopping pollution and save water, otherwise we cannot survive on the earth.
9 . Masks that helped save lives are proving a deadly danger to wildlife, with birds and sea creatures trapped in the shocking number of thrown-away facial coverings. Single-use masks have been found around pavements, waterways and beaches worldwide. Worn once, the thin protective materials can take hundreds of years to decompose. “Face masks aren’t going away any time soon — but when we throw them away, these items can harm the environment and the animals,” Ashley Fruno of animal rights group PETA said.
In Britain, a gull was rescued by the RSPCA after its legs became tangled in the straps of a mask for up to a week. The animal welfare charity took it to a wildlife hospital for treatment before its release.
The biggest effect may be in the water. More than 1.5 billion masks made their way into the world’s oceans last year, accounting for around 6,200 extra tonnes of ocean plastic pollution, according to environmental group Oceans Asia.
Conservationists in Brazil found one mask inside the stomach of a penguin after its body was washed up on a beach, while a dead puffer fish was discovered caught inside another off the coast of Miami. French campaigners found a dead crab trapped in a mask near the Mediterranean.
Masks and gloves are “particularly problematic” for sea creatures, says George Leonard, chief scientist from NGO Ocean Conservancy. “When those plastics break down in the environment, they then enter the food chain and impact the entire ecosystems,” he added.
There has been a shift towards greater use of reusable cloth masks as the pandemic has worn on, but many are still using the lighter single-use varieties. Campaigners have urged people to bin them properly and cut the straps to reduce the risk of animals becoming trapped. Oceans Asia has also called on governments to increase fines for littering and encourage the use of washable masks.
1. What does the underlined word “decompose” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Burn away. | B．Produce. | C．Break down. | D．Improve. |
| A．The environmental group saves many animals. |
| B．Sea wildlife is fond of feeding on face masks. |
| C．Measures should be taken to protect sea wildlife. |
| D．Masks thrown around finally do harm to human. |
| A．By increasing fines for throwing masks. | B．By preventing the public using single-use masks. |
| C．By working with campaigners’ groups. | D．By washing face masks frequently. |
| A．Wildlife Faces a Threat from Face Masks | B．Face Masks can Harm the Environment |
| C．Animal Protection Organizations Matter | D．Government should Ban Littering Face Masks |
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
主意：1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
One day, my sister Alice and I were walking in our hometown and saw hundred of rubbish on the ground. They made the town look such ugly that we decided to do something. At first, we draw pictures with words in parks, in beaches to let people know the damage to the environment. Late, we raised money to buy dustbins for our town. Many newspapers have been written about my sister and me over the past five years. As the result, we have won many prizes for that we have done. But we are not interesting in prizes. We just want make our hometown a better and cleaner place.
