The Northeast China Tiger and Leopard (豹) National Park, bordering Russia and the North Korea,     1     (cover) an area of 14,100 square kilometers. It is the major habitat of the country’s Siberian tigers and Amur leopards and is     2     model for cross-border wildlife conservation.

Located in the temperate (温带) zone of Asia, the park possesses splendid and     3     (attract) scenery in different seasons. In addition, there are plenty of plant species     4     (preserve) in the park. Some of them are endangered plant species and under state protection.

The park is a perfect place for the reproduction (繁殖) and     5     (survive) of birds. Every spring, various forest birds start returning from the south to prepare     6     (lay) eggs. The rich soil of the park also provides a favorable living environment     7     cold-blooded animals. At present, a community of flesh-eating animals and plant-eating animals makes up a complete food chain in the national park,     8     is extremely rare to see in China. The establishment of national park will     9     (effective) protect Siberian tigers and Amur leopard,     10     (help) them continue to reproduce and live in harmony with nature.

4 . Few people knew about online food delivery apps ten years ago, but today, many would find it hard to live without them. In China alone, over 400 million people use such apps. ________ online food delivery services have changed the way we eat, and they are also having a huge impact on our society.

These services have ________ brought us many benefits. They provide jobs for millions of people and help restaurants find more customers. Since the apps are very convenient, they also benefit consumers: we can now have meals delivered at any time of a day, ________ bad weather or busy schedules. This is especially true for people who work long hours, since they might not have time to cook. Not only do these apps _________ time, they also provide us with a wide variety of restaurants to choose from. They have proved to be useful for retired people as well: ________ who live far away from restaurants and supermarkets can now get hold of meals and groceries more easily.

However, we must not forget the ________ of online food delivery services. For one thing, they make it even easier to order unhealthy food, ________ in sugar, fat and salt. Food safety is another problem: it can be hard to ________ where the food actually comes from, and whether the owner is legally permitted to run a restaurant. As couriers (外卖员) need to deliver the orders as quickly as possible, some ________ traffic rules. In recent years, there have been a number of terrible traffic accidents because of this. ________, the industry is creating unbelievable amounts of packaging waste: over a million tonnes of online food delivery boxes are thrown away every year. Experts assume that this number will continue to ________ in the future, and this will have an increasingly negative impact on the environment.

There are many advantages of these services, but we need to make sure that we make the right choices ________. We should do our best to limit waste, especially when it comes to ________, so as to contribute to sustainable development. We also need to think about what we eat and the impact on our health. Next time you are thinking about ________, you should ask yourself whether you really need to. In most cases, it's better to walk over to the supermarket, buy the ________ you need, and then cook them yourself.

Among all the members in the cat family, the Siberian tiger is the largest in size. Also known as the Northeast Tiger in China, the Siberian tiger is one of the most     1     (endanger) animals in the world, mainly living in Russia’s Far East and Northeast China. Now about 500 Siberian tigers are believed to be living in the wild. Long ago, Siberian tigers     2     (be) all over Northeast Asia and Russian Far East, but today they are found mainly along the Chinese-Russian border and     3     (possible) in North Korea. The main reason for their decrease in numbers is the     4     (disappear) of their natural habitat. Fortunately, steps     5     (take) to save this magnificent creature in recent years and as a consequence numbers are     6     the rise.

Recently, a wild Siberian tiger has been spotted in a forest area in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province.     7     (suggest) the ongoing improvement of the local ecological environment, according to forest rangers (护林人). News report says that footprints and excrement (排泄物) of a suspected Siberian tiger were found by local forest rangers and they checked the infrared (红外线) cameras in the area and saw     8       appeared to be an adult wild tiger. A DNA test of the tiger’s excrement has confirmed that it is     9       new adult male tiger. rather than the one rescued and later released into the wild in 2021. “This is the fifth adult wild Siberian tiger     10     has been spotted in the Muling forest-area in recent years,” they said.

Repair Café

When things around the house stop working, what do you usually do with them? If you're     1     a lot of people, you probably just throw them away.

This tendency has led to the modern nickname: the throwaway culture. There are many reasons for this trend. In some areas     2     it's difficult to find people who can make repairs, fixing things can be quite expensive. Also, some small appliances are so inexpensive that it's often much     3     (easy) to just buy a new one.

In 2009, Martine Postma from the Netherlands decided there must be a better way. Her solution was Repair Cafés: places where people can take damaged or     4     (tear) items. There they will find tools, resources and volunteer experts who are willing to help with repairs.

Postma's first Repair Café opened on Oct. 18, 2009, in Amsterdam, and was a huge success. News of the café spread, and people began asking     5     they could start their own. In 2011, Postma established the Repair Café Foundation. This nonprofit organization provides guidance to those hoping to begin their own neighborhood repair group.

Today, there are roughly 2,000 Repair Cafés around the world with meetings typically    6     (occur) once a month. Around 25 objects per session are repaired.     7     is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.

Not only do the cafés provide help with repairs, they also strengthen community ties. Neighbors get to know one another as they work together on projects. In addition, valuable knowledge is passed along and preserved. Items are kept     8     thrown away, meaning less trash in landfills.    9     an average broken item weighs a kilo, it's been estimated that 2,000 Repair Cafés prevent 35,000 kilos of trash every month. That    10     (add) up to about 420,000 kilos per year!

7 . Topher White spends so much time walking in the forest and thinking about how quickly we’re losing it. The engineer is determined to stop global deforestation. Founder of the San Francisco-based non-profit Rainforest Connection, White has developed a small but clever strategy: using old cell phones to listen for the sound of destruction.

Forests are disappearing worldwide, and fast：an area about half the size of England is lost each year. The Amazon has lost close to one-fifth of its rainforest cover in the last four decades. Forest loss not only harms wildlife, including many species that live nowhere else, but it’s also a big contributor to the greenhouse gas emission(排放)that cause climate change.

”I didn’t know any of this when I started,“ says White, who began his journey in 2011, when he traveled to Indonesian Borneo to help decreasing gibbons(长臂猿).

Between 50 and 90 percent of the logging that happens in the world’s rainforests is illegal, according to White, yet detecting chainsaws(电锯)and other sounds related to that activity can be tough, because the air is already filled with the loud unpleasant mixture of sounds from nature. So he has developed a system in which he installs a cell phone that stays charged by solar cells, attaches an extra microphone, and listens. From there, the device can detect the sounds of chainsaws nearly a mile away.

Because it’s unfeasible to have people listening to the devices all the time, he added some “old-school data analysis”, so that the cell phone’s computers can distinguish a chainsaw’s sound from others in the forest. This way, his device can automatically detect logging activity and send a text alert to authorities who can determine if it’s illegal and then stop it.

White notes that he’s not alone in the fight: Many people and organizations are working tirelessly to stop forests from disappearing. For instance, local groups are particularly active in forest conservation efforts, White says.

So far, his monitoring devices have been used in Cameroon, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil and will soon be used in Bolivia. It’s not just about listening for logging. The same technology that can pick out the buzz of a chainsaw can pick out the sounds of specific birds, which is why Whtie sees the forest recordings as a potential science tool. He’s urging biologists and ecologists to use his monitoring system anywhere, whether it’s a remote forest or a park in London. “The more we learn about these places,” he says, “the easier it’ll be to protect them.”

8 . Scientists have reported that the sea ice in Antarctica is at a record low level. Antarctica is a great, icy land, surrounded by the huge Southern Ocean. The ice in Antarctica doesn't just cover the land. There’s also a large area of sea ice on the ocean’s surface.

Every year, the sea ice at the South Pole goes through a cycle. In the summer, the huge sea ice melts to its smallest point. Over the colder winter months, the sea ice grows and grows until it covers a wide area. Usually, the sea ice covers the greatest area around September 23, as winter ends at the South Pole.

Scientists have been measuring the area of the sea ice in Antarctica since 1979. For most of this time, Antarctica has seemed to be almost unaffected by the changing weather conditions experienced in other parts of the globe. That began to change around 2016. Now, for several years, the area of Antartica’s sea ice has been shrinking.

This year, the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) reported that Antartica’s sea ice covered its greatest area on September 10 — almost two weeks earlier than normal. And the sea ice was at a new record low-not just by a little bit, but by a lot.

The last time Antartica’s low sea ice set a record at the end of winter was in 1986. And this year, there’s about 398,000 square miles less sea ice than in 1986.

Scientists are still trying to understand what is driving the change in Antarctica. One likely direct cause for the change is the rising temperatures of the world’s oceans. Ted Scambos, a research scientist at the University of Colorado, says Antarctica’s ice levels have always changed some, but the sharp loss this year is “pointing towards warmer ocean conditions around the continent.”

The new low record has worried the scientists. Scientists are working hard to better understand Antarctica. They don’t know yet if this is just a short-term problem, or part of a long-term shift towards less sea ice in Antarctica.