1 . Ways to Save the Ocean
It’s no doubt that the ocean needs our help.
Still, however much we understand that reducing and recycling is not enough, small actions can help us save the ocean. With this in mind, we’ve rounded up some simple actions we can all take to save the ocean.
Commit to a plastic-free lifestyle. So, in order to help save the ocean, many people are committing to a plastic-free lifestyle. The United Nations (UN) has even encouraged the public to think about how they deal with plastic and the ways they can live without it, or replace it:
Turn your food waste into compost (混合肥料). Composting food waste is an easy way to reduce methane (甲烷). Not only does compost reduce methane production, it can also help you fertilize your personal garden.
| A．Reduce your carbon footprints. |
| B．Use those reusable things in your daily life. |
| C．And try decreasing your food waste by shopping locally |
| D．Just remember: the fight for saving the ocean doesn’t end here. |
| E．Of course, there are many other essential organizations in the world. |
| F．It's likely that a lot of your self-care products contain damaging materials. |
| G．The best thing that you can do for the ocean is to join a movement to save it. |
2 . They say once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget. Most of us learned to ride when we were kids, and many still wear our helmets, put our feet on the pedals, and shoot off for a ride on the streets. In recent times, cycling has seen an increase in popularity, so many people raise a question:
First, let’s look at the health benefits. Cycling can improve your cardiovascular (心血管的) health and burn extra body fat. Strengthening your muscles in your legs helps increase your potential torque (扭矩) and cadence (节奏).
Cycling can be a great way to go to work or get about town.
So, whether people want to cycle for their health, their wallet, the environment, or a combination of all of them —the popularity of cycling is on the rise.
| A．What makes cycling so convenient? |
| B．But cyclists face neither of these issues. |
| C．And people will choose to go to work by cycling. |
| D．This can save you a lot of money on fuel or public transportation. |
| E．Finally, cycling can also be good for the environment. |
| F．And the benefits from cycling aren’t just physical, but mental as well. |
| G．What makes it so attractive for people to take their bikes once again? |
3 . Rubbish of all kinds is piling up in landfill and polluting our rivers and oceans. A more recent addition to the list of things we discard is e-waste — electronic items that are broken and not recycled. A UN report claims the 50 million tonnes of e-waste produced every year will more than double to 110 million tonnes by 2050, making it the fastest growing waste stream in the world. Now ways are being found to give it a new life.
There’s a growing trend for repair events and clubs which could be part of a solution to the growing amount of electrical and electronic garbage. The BBC visited a Restart Project in London, which is one of the many found around the world. One of its volunteers, Francesco Calo said, “This project allows you to reduce waste, lengthen the life of objects, and it helps people who cannot afford to get rid of items that have developed a fault. ”
Electronics consist of materials like plastic, metals, chemicals and glass. As many electrical items contain valuable metals, another idea is e-waste mining. An experiment at the University of New South Wales includes extracting (提取) these materials from electronic items. It’s thought that doing this could be more profitable than traditional mining. With phones typically containing as many as 60 components, this could be part of the solution to our appetite for new technology.
These projects make total sense — collections of e-waste for recycling are not progressing or even decreasing according to Ruediger Kuehr of the United Nations University. And in countries where there are no recycling laws, much of it is got rid of. However, the European Union, for example, is trying to settle the problem by insisting business firms have to make appliances longer-lasting and have to supply spare parts for machines for up to 10 years.
1. What does the underlined word “discard” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．throw away | B．take apart |
| C．make the best of | D．put together |
| A．Collect electronic garbage. | B．Use their electronics longer. |
| C．Buy good-quality electronics. | D．Get jobs in recycling companies. |
| A．Hard plastic. | B．Precious metals. |
| C．Toughened glass. | D．Various chemicals. |
| A．Improving recycling process. | B．Replacing spare parts timely. |
| C．Using electronics permanently. | D．Making e-waste recycling laws. |
4 . Levon Biss was looking at insects from his garden through a microscope he bought for his son. For fun, they unintentionally placed an insect under the lens (镜片). “It is amazingly beautiful!” they both screamed.
The father had been making a career taking photographs for advertisements. But that experience gave him a new direction. Around the world, insect populations are in decline because of habitat loss and climate change. Biss thought that if people could see what he saw through his son’s microscope, they would care more about protecting insects.
So Biss turned to macrophotography: taking close-up pictures of small things, like flowers or bugs. His work has attracted attention not just for its unusual beauty. It also raises awareness about the need for conservation.
In 2016, Biss showed his first insect project, Microsculpture. The term refers to the features of an insect’s exoskeleton, or outer shell, which develops over time as the bug adapts to its environment.
Biss’s pictures capture the insects in all their microscopic details. Then he blows up the images until the insects become larger than life, some of them eight feet tall. But each image takes weeks to make. He uses a digital camera with a microscope lens. The camera is fixed on a computerized track, which allows Biss to take a shot, then move the camera by seven microns (微米) — a distance equals to about 1/10 the thickness of a human hair — for the next shot. In the end, Biss might take 10,000 shots of a bug. A computer combines these small pictures into a single image.
Biss’s latest exhibition is Extinct and Endangered at the American Museum of Natural History. He selected bugs that were extinct or endangered, hoping his photographs would serve as a better purpose. “I communicate visually,” he says, “The way I work is through pictures. But I think it’s my duty to shake things up and get people to pay attention.”
1. What made Levon Biss turn to macrophotography?| A．Beautiful insects. | B．Attractive environment. |
| C．An expensive microscope. | D．An accidental observation. |
| A．By taking a shot at them twice. |
| B．By adjusting the camera on a track. |
| C．By taking close-up pictures countless times. |
| D．By putting them in order on a computer. |
| A．Get rid of the prejudice. |
| B．Take action to save wildlife. |
| C．Spare no efforts to face difficulties. |
| D．Make people think about nature differently. |
| A．Patient and responsible. | B．Wealthy and ambitious. |
| C．Polite and strong-willed. | D．Curious and easy-going. |
5 . Tips for Green Travel with Kids
Traveling doesn’t mean letting go of all the eco-friendly choices we work so hard to achieve in our daily life. Here are a few tips for green travel with kids:
Booking nonstop flights whenever possible will reduce carbon emissions (碳排放).
Whether you’re flying or driving, it’s easy when traveling to pull into fast food restaurants for snacks.
Reusable water bottles are easy to bring along whenever you travel. At the airport, keep your reusable bottles empty until you have passed through the security (安检).
| A．Too much carbon emissions seriously pollute the environment |
| B．But you can pack healthy food before starting off |
| C．In this way, you can save water and energy |
| D．Fill them up on the other side of the security checkpoint |
| E．Security check is a necessary part of each trip |
| F．Save energy by turning off the hotel room lights when you head out for the day |
| G．If the closest local airport doesn’t have nonstop flights to a certain place |
6 . There are more than 7 billion people on Earth. Imagine what will happen if each of us decides to do one thing — no matter how small — to protect wildlife every day. Even little actions can have a major influence when we all do something.
Raise an animal
From wild animals to wild places, there’s a choice for everyone.
Do some volunteer work
Speak up and join
Share your concern for wildlife protection with your family. Tell your friends how they can help. Ask everyone you know to do what they can to stop wildlife trafficking (非法交易).
Find new ways to use things you already own. If you can’t reuse them, recycle. The Minnesota Zoo encourages customers to recycle mobile phones to cut down a need for the mineral coltan (钶钽铁矿), which is mined from lowland gorillas’ living places.
| A．Develop a habit of recycling |
| B．Try to encourage others to do it |
| C．Whether you’re into protecting natural living places or preventing wildlife trafficking |
| D．If you don’t have money to give |
| E．Get together with classmates to raise an animal from a wildlife organization |
| F．Here are ways you can make a difference |
| G．If you are busy with your work or studying |
7 . A team of conservationists (环境保护主义者) captured 14 Loa water frogs earlier this month in northern Chile, a wildlife group reported.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the Loa water frog as “critically endangered”. The not-for-profit Global Wildlife Conservation group said the 14 frogs were in poor condition when they were discovered in late June. The animals were small and struggling because of a lack of food and water.
The Loa water frogs are known to live only in a single body of water near Calama, in Chile. The city sits in the middle of the Atacama Desert, where water is in great demand.
There was little water in the area where the frogs were found, the conservation group reported. The frogs’ environment had mostly dried up because water is being taken away and used for human activities, the group said. The activities include mining (矿业), agriculture and land development. “All of the frogs had been pushed into a tiny pool of muddy water,” the organization said. “The team collected the last 14 individuals and brought them to the National Zoo of Chile to start a conservation breeding (繁殖) program.”
Zoo specialists are closely watching the small creatures and trying to give them everything they need to survive and be healthy. Conservation groups have called on Chile’s government to take steps to halt any illegal water usage that threatens the frogs’ natural environment. They would also like to see creation of a government-supported shelter to protect the animals.
Jon Paul Rodriguez heads the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission. He suggested that an emergency plan be developed to prepare the Calama area for the frogs’ return.
“We need to work very hard to restore their environment because it’s pointless to breed them if they don’t have a home to go back to in the wild,” Rodriguez said.
1. What do we know about the frogs when they were rescued?| A．They were looking for food. | B．They were in good condition. |
| C．They were approaching death. | D．They were moving for new water source. |
| A．Lack of water. | B．Air pollution. |
| C．Human hunting. | D．Extreme climate. |
| A．Improve. | B．Add. | C．Change. | D．Stop. |
| A．Keep them healthy. | B．Recover their home. |
| C．Raise them in the shelter. | D．Prevent them living in the wild. |
Dongying city in China’s Shandong Province has witnessed ecological improvements in the Yellow River Delta, thanks to various
Years ago, the wetlands there
Dongying has been adopting a comprehensive wetlands restoration model by giving high priority to protecting the nature reserve and letting nature restore
Last year, Dongying built a real-time monitoring network for bird species at the nature reserve, which ensures that birds are free from disturbance of human activity and
9 . The endangered pandas in the Qinling Mountains might face a new threat: the loss of their food, bamboo, which makes up 99% of their meals.
Adult pandas spend most part of the day eating bamboo and have to take in at least 40 pounds a day to stay healthy. However, a new study published in Nature Climate Change warned that they may soon find their food gone because most of the bamboo in the Qinling Mountains might disappear by the end of the century as a result of rising temperature worldwide.
A team made up of researchers from Michigan State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has studied the effects of climate change on the bamboo in the Qinling Mountains. They have found that bamboo is very sensitive to climate changes. “80% to 100% of the bamboo would be gone if the average temperature rises 3.5 degrees worldwide by the end of the century,” said Liu Jianguo, one of the report’s authors.
He added, “This is how much the temperature would rise by 2100 even if all countries will keep their promises in the Paris Agreement. But you know what is happening all around the world.”
In recent years, China has been trying its best to protect the endangered pandas by setting up more and bigger natural reserves.
“But it is far from enough and the endangered pandas need cooperation from the rest of the world, because their future is not just in the hands of the Chinese,” said Shirley Martin from the World Wildlife Fund but not a member of the team.
The Qinling Mountains, in the southwest of China, are home to about 260 pandas. That is about 13% of China’s wild panda population. In addition, about 375 are living in research centers and zoos in China.
1. How many wild pandas are there in China?| A．About 260. | B．About 635. |
| C．About 2,635. | D．About 2,000. |
| A．China needs more help from the World Wildlife Fund. |
| B．It is difficult to control the temperature rise within 3.5℃. |
| C．Bamboo is sensitive to the changes of temperature. |
| D．China is making great efforts to protect the pandas. |
| A．The Qinling Mountains can provide enough bamboo for the pandas. |
| B．Pandas in the Qinling Mountains are only threatened by the loss of food. |
| C．Lots of the bamboo in the Qinling Mountains will probably disappear. |
| D．Pandas have already eaten 99% of the bamboo in the Qinling Mountains. |
| A．The Disappearance of Bamboo |
| B．Necessity to Change Pandas’ Food |
| C．A New Threat Faced by the Pandas |
| D．Efforts Made to Save Pandas |
10 . Despite the bad reputation of sharks, they are crucial to the health of the marine ecosystem and can even help fight climate change.
In the shallows of Shaik Bay, Western Australia, seagrass is food for the sea cows, which can weigh as much as 500 kg and eat roughly 40 kg of seagrass a day. Sea cows are a rich source of food for tiger sharks. By keeping the sea cow population controlled, tiger sharks here help the seagrass grow sustainably. A booming seagrass meadow stores twice as much CO₂ per square mile as forests typically do on land.
But tiger shark numbers are declining. Off Australia’s northeast coast of Queensland, tiger sharks are estimated to have fallen by at least 71 percent, largely due to overfishing. A reduction in tiger sharks means more seagrass consumed by herbivores (食草动物) and less carbon stored in sea vegetation. This raised the question: What if they were absent from the Shark Bay — would the seagrass-dominated ecosystem survive?
To find out, researcher led by Rob Nowicki of Florida International University, spent time in Eastern Australia, where shark numbers were lower and sea cows ate seagrass largely undisturbed. “When uncontrolled, sea cows can rapidly destroy wide areas of seagrass.” said Nowicki.
Those findings emphasized that tiger sharks were playing an important role in preventing the reduction of seagrass in Shark Bay. If their populations continue to decline, the resilience of carbon-rich ocean ecosystems will likely decrease.
When it comes to stimulating shark numbers, there have been movements toward more sustainable fishing, but a large percentage of the industry have not changed their methods, which is a reason why the population of many marine top predators (捕食者) continues to decline.
Aside from supporting sustainable fishing, Nowicki said the only way to truly protect marine life is to reduce our global greenhouse gas emissions. “Ultimately, if we are going to protect our ecosystems in the centuries to come, we are going to need to solve climate change while undertaking species protection at the same time.”
1. Why are tiger sharks vital to the marine ecosystem?| A．They feed on various sea animals. | B．They can store large amounts of CO₂. |
| C．They can prevent the loss of seagrass. | D．They influence marine species’ health |
| A．Remark. | B．Recovery. | C．Bother. | D．Accident. |
| A．Unsustainable fishing. | B．Lack of protection. |
| C．Climate change. | D．Loss of seagrass. |
| A．To tell the number of tiger sharks is decreasing. |
| B．To show climate change causes the loss of seagrass. |
| C．To tell environmental protection is at the top of the agenda. |
| D．To show tiger sharks are vital to the health of the marine ecosystem. |
