Green Hills, Clear Water, Blue Sky is a project that was set up
All in all, people and the government should work side by side to take care of the Earth.
2 . Cows produce much methane (甲烷) the world’s second worst greenhouse gas, as they break down the grass. They are a large source of the greenhouse gases that are driving climate change. Now scientists have shown the pollution from cows can be reduced by adding a little seaweed (海藻) to their food.
Recently, the researchers from the University of California studied 21 cows on a farm for about five months. They taught the cows to get their food from inside a special hood, which allowed the scientists to know the amount of the methane the cows were giving off. They added a small amount of seaweed to the cows’ food.
The consequences were surprisingly good. In some cases, the cows produced 82% less methane. The improvement depended on the kind of food the cows were given. Even the worst-polluting cows produced 33% less methane. Over the five months, the scientists didn’t see any signs that the cows’ stomachs were getting used to the seaweed and starting to produce more methane again. What’s more, the cows that were fed seaweed gained just as much weight as the other cows.
But there are still some big problems with the idea of feeding cows seaweed. For one thing, there’s not enough seaweed to feed all of the cows in the world. So farmers would have to figure out a way to grow lots of seaweed. A bigger problem is that for most of their lives, cows live in the fields, where they eat grass. That means there’s no chance to feed them seaweed every day.
Still, as the study shows, something as simple as feeding cows seaweed can help reduce some of the pollution causing the climate crisis.
1. Why did the researchers carry out the study?| A．To test the effects of the seaweed. |
| B．To discover healthier grass for cows. |
| C．To improve the cows’ living conditions. |
| D．To measure the amount of methane in the world. |
| A．The background of the subject. | B．The results of the study. |
| C．The content of the experiment. | D．The process of the research. |
| A．Seaweed is not as tasty as grass. |
| B．Seaweed is dying out in the world. |
| C．Cows fed with seaweed gained weight easily. |
| D．Cows can hardly have daily access to seaweed. |
| A．Positive. | B．Doubtful. | C．Unclear. | D．Negative. |
3 . Mr. Pagano is watching a video of a polar bear swimming after a seal. The seal escapes! The bear meets another bear. They look at each other and then go separate ways. What makes this video so unusual is that it’s from the point of view of the polar bear. A camera was previously put around the bear’s neck by Mr. Pagano’s research team with the aim to find out what polar bears will need to survive in their changing habitat.
According to scientists, polar bears are endangered because of Earth’s warming climate, which is reducing the ice pack that floats on the Arctic Ocean. The ice pack goes through a yearly cycle. In the fall and winter, the ice pack grows southward, spreading toward North America, Asia, and Europe. By the end of winter, the ice pack lies over shallower waters near land, where seals live. The polar bears hunt along the edge of that ice, eating seals in the spring and early summer before the ice over shallow waters melts. It’s how the bears fatten up for the next winter.
In the past few decades, the ice pack has started to grow later in the fall. As a result, it isn’t as thick and starts to melt and break up earlier in the spring. That gives the bears less sea ice for hunting and forces some of them to swim farther to move between land and ice habitats. Studies show that, in places where the ice has been breaking up earlier for decades, the number of bears is going down, and their overall health is getting worse. Scientists want to know if bears are still finding enough to eat and how far they have to travel, or swim, to find food.
Using the GPS collars, the researchers confirmed that some bears are swimming long distances. Of 52 bears, 20 took a total of 50 long-distance swims, each one a journey of more than 30 miles. Are the long-distance travels harming their chances for survival? If polar bears are going to survive in the warming Arctic, humans may need to act right now. With the work of scientists like Mr. Pagano, silver linings will finally cut open the darkness.
1. What probably is Mr. Pagano?| A．A climate scientist. | B．A zoologist. | C．A GPS engineer | D．An ice observer. |
| A．it is made by professional animal researchers |
| B．its aim is to trace bear behaviors in North Pole |
| C．it is filmed by a camera attached to a polar bear |
| D．it uses hi-tech GPS to study polar bears’ habitats |
| A．The decreasing shallow waters. | B．The decreasing number of seals. |
| C．The long-distance travels for habitats. | D．The changed yearly cycle of ice packs. |
| A．hopeful | B．limited | C．complete | D．questionable |
4 . Now, Earth Day is celebrated every year on April 22. A man, called Senator Gaylord Nelson Take, was determined to change the way we treated our planet. He didn’t stop his work until he had made a difference.
In 1963, Senator Gaylord Nelson wasn’t happy with the earth’s condition. He wanted to clean up the planet and solve pollution and environmental problems. As a senator, Gaylord Nelson was someone chosen by US citizens to help make laws, so he had a lot of power. He went to John F. Kennedy, the President at the time, with his concerns. The President agreed that the planet’s environment was a serious issue, so President Kennedy went around the country on a fiveday tour to promote (宣传) the idea of cleaning up the planet. People began making small changes, but it wasn’t enough.
A few years later, Senator Nelson decided to put one day aside every year for the cause of saving the planet. On April 22,1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated; 20 million American demonstrators (示威者) took part in Earth Day activities. Since then, Earth Day has become an international holiday. People all over the world are doing something to make the earth a cleaner, better place. Today more than 500 million people in 164 countries participate (参与) in Earth Day festivities!
Then, what can you do to make a difference?
*Encourage your family to recycle on a regular basis. It is a good way to help the earth!
*Switch to energyefficient light bulbs in your house to reduce the effects of global warming.
*Every glass bottle you recycle saves enough energy to run a TV for an hour and a half, while recycling an aluminum (铝) bottle can save enough energy to run your TV for three hours!
*Turn out the lights when you leave a room — unless someone’s still there!
*Use reuseable containers for your school lunches and snacks.
1. What does a senator usually do according to the passage?| A．Cleaning up the planet. | B．Solving population problems. |
| C．Helping make laws. | D．Talking to the President. |
| A．in America | B．in Britain |
| C．in 164 countries | D．across the world |
| A．For a half hour. | B．For an hour. |
| C．For an hour and a half. | D．For three hours. |
| A．It was in 1963 that Senator Nelson came up with the idea of choosing a day as Earth Day. |
| B．John F. Kennedy agreed to put April 22 aside every year as Earth Day. |
| C．President Kennedy agreed with Nelson’s idea of cleaning up the planet. |
| D．More than 500 million people took part in the first Earth Day activities. |
5 . There's no place like home, where we're surrounded by our favorite foods and many other comforts. Most important of all, we can keep adding favorite things to give our homes a personal touch.
Of course, we can be easily attracted to these unique plants. They can add a natural touch to our homes.
Despite the benefits, the Royal Horticultural Society is deeply concerned that the houseplants might not be good for the environment.
In short, the Royal Horticultural Society encourages people to buy local（本地的）plants held in reusable pots that are filled with natural soil.
| A．Some of those popular things are houseplants. |
| B．However, some of these houseplants are too expensive. |
| C．Many experts are opposed to buying houseplants for homes. |
| D．They have the ability to brighten up a room with acceptable costs. |
| E．It has found that many of the plants bought online are shipped from overseas. |
| F．It has also found that young people are driving up the sales of houseplants very fast. |
| G．Then these “living" additions will be good for ourselves and for our environment. |
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。
Last Thursday, we had a class meeting to discuss what we were going to do on the weekend. We came up with several ideas such going to a park, climbing a mountain, and go boating. Final, we decided to climb a mountain where is close to our school.
The next day, we left early in the morning. Along the way, we enjoyed the warm sunshines and beautiful nature. However, when we reached the mountain top, we were shocking to see rubbish here or there. Then we asked the other tourists to join in us to pick up the rubbish.
We collect and put the rubbish in our paper bags. They were tired but felt very happy.
7 . Journalist John Smith says that so many scientists visit Yellowstone National Park — close to 4 million a year — that it’s stressing the park’s ecosystem. But, he adds, the development of private lands around the park is an even greater threat.
“People come to buy a small farm of 300 acres, and they build a house, get a road and a satellite dish. They turn what was wild landscape into human-occupied landscape,” Smith says. “And that’s problematic for the elk that move through these corridors.
The elk of Yellowstone National Park spend their summer in the high country of Yellowstone, feeding on high grass that remain green through the summer, but in the winter, those high places become very cold, and so the elk move down to lower places in the surrounding land onto national forests and in some cases onto large private ranches.
If those private lands are transformed from open land into small farms, to shopping malls, to roads, to Starbucks, if those places are all settled for the benefit of humans, then the elk are not going to be able to move in and out of Yellowstone National Park any more. And if the elk can’t move into the park, then that creates problems for the wolves and a lot of other creatures. The elk are the most abundant large herbivores in the Yellowstone ecosystem. Those moving routes need to stay open.
Smith notes that Yellowstone National Park is just one part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, a 22 million-acre area that also includes Grand Teton National Park, a portion of the Wind River Indian Reservation and other private and federally owned lands. Because the animals in Yellowstone need to move outside the park in the winter, the lands in the greater ecosystem play an important role in the park’s continued existence.
“It has been realized in recent decades that Yellowstone National Park is not an island,” Smith says. “It’s part of this larger system, this larger body of wild landscape, and it needs the rest of this wild landscape just as the rest of the wild landscape needs it.”
1. What is John Smith worried about concerning Yellowstone National Park?| A．There are few corridors in it. | B．It doesn’t get enough visitors. |
| C．Part of the land in the park is over-developed. | D．The private lands around it are being developed. |
| A．They stay in the park. | B．They eat high grass. |
| C．They move to lower places. | D．They leave big private ranches. |
| A．The elk’s natural enemies. | B．The elk’s living environment. |
| C．How to protect the elk from other animals. | D．Why the moving routes shouldn’t be developed. |
| A．The park needs more land. | B．The park is similar to an island. |
| C．The park depends on the lands around it. | D．The park includes a large wild landscape. |
8 . Microbiologists have designed a sustainable way to remove polluting microplastics from the environment by using bacteria. Initial design as it is, it paves the way for sustainably lowering plastic pollution levels and stop the “plastification”.
Bacteria naturally tend to group together and stick to surfaces, and this creates a sticky material called “biofilm”. Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) want to use this adhesive bacteria character and capture microplastics in polluted water to form an easily disposable and recyclable blob(团) .
Sylvia Lang Liu, microbiology researcher at PolyU and lead researcher on this project, together with his team, has engineered a bacterial biofilm, which can fix and absorb microplastics floating around in the water, and make them sink to the bottom of the water. Then the researchers can separate the microplastics from the bacteria traps and get them ready to recycle.
Microplastics are the plastic fragments, usually smaller than 5mm, which are accidentally released into the environment during production and breakdown of grocery bags or water bottles, or during everyday activities such as washing synthetic (合成的) clothes or using personal care products with scrubbing microbeads in them. Microplastics are visually tiny, making it challenging to develop effective solutions to trap, collect, and recycle them.
Microplastics are not easily biodegradable (生物降解的), so they stick around for long and absorb and accumulate poisonous chemicals. They spread into wastewater and into the oceans, endangering marine animals and eventually threatening human health, Microplastics had been found in more than 114 species living in the water and also salt, lettuce, apples, and more in 2018 according to the International Maritime Organization.
“This is an innovative application of biofilm engineering l0 address the plastio pollution crisis,” said Dr Joanna Sadler, researcher at University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in this study. “One of the biggest challenges in dealing with microplastics is capturing such small particles. Liu and co-workers have denmonstrated an elegant solution to this problem, which holds great potential to be further developed into a real-world wastewater treatment technology.”
1. Which of the following best explains the underlined word “adhesive” in Paragraph 2?| A．Floating. | B．Sticky. | C．Diverse. | D．Visual. |
| A．They are visually too small. | B．They are hard to biodegrade. |
| C．They continue to exist for long. | D．They are poisonous chemicals. |
| A．Small particles are essential to address water pollution |
| B．Biofilm bas been widely used to settle plastic pollution. |
| C．Sadler thinks little of the biofilm engineering application. |
| D．Biofilm application is promising for wastewater treatment. |
| A．Microplastic removal. | B．Uses of bacteria. |
| C．Wastewater treatment. | D．Plastic pollution. |
9 . All living things in the ocean are endangered by humans polluting the water.
Other substances( 物 质 ), such as radioactive waste material, can also cause pollution.
Rivers also can contribute to the pollution of oceans.
Worse yet are the pesticides(杀虫剂) carried to the ocean. these chemicals slowly build up in fish and other small animals.
| A．Fish and turtles suffer the most |
| B．Pollution occurs in several ways. |
| C．Oil is another major source of concern |
| D．Many rivers receive the runoff water from farmlands |
| E．Farmers use these artificial fertilizers to increase crop harvest. |
| F．These materials are often placed in the water in safely sealed containers. |
| G．These animals then pass the pesticides on to the larger animals that feed on them. |
10 . It is generally believed that tourism is very important for any country.
Forests are cut down to make way for tourism
Rapid growth of tourism in an area always creates a huge need for more buildings. Forests are cut down to make space for parking lots and theme parks or hotels.
Tourism causes noise pollution
Places that attract big crowds of tourists every year produce loud noise either from the cars or loud music played by visitors.
Tourism causes light pollution
Tourists are leaving behind mountains of trash
Seeing plastic cups and glass bottles around sea shores by the beaches isn't something new. It has become a common sight, especially in those places most frequently visited by tourists.
| A．But without good plans |
| B．Blinding light hurts humans' health |
| C．Without enough trees to clean the air |
| D．Visitors are leaving trash in the mountains, too |
| E．Much of the plastic trash ends up inside sea animals |
| F．Light pollution is another serious problem from tourism |
| G．Such loud sound is very bad for both humans and animals |
