When Simon Cane was in the second grade, he began learning about all the ways humans have an impact on the environment and really took those classroom lessons to heart in a way that set him apart from his schoolmates at his elementary school, P. S. 81, in the Bronx. “He told me we drove too much and made too much pollution,” his dad, Jonathan Cane, told Runner’s World. So Simon convinced his parents to start hanging their clothes to dry, taking the stairs instead of elevators, and other “green” measures.
“For much of kindergarten and the first grade I rode my bike to Simon’s school with him on the back,” Jonathan said. “We had a lot of fun being outdoors. We’d stop to give our dog treats and generally enjoyed it.” As Simon got bigger, though, it wasn’t practical for him to ride on his father’s back, but it also didn’t make sense to ride together — both because of safety concerns and because there was no place to put away Simon’s bike. So, most of the time they drove the 1.5 miles to school.
But in 2019, when Simon was going into the third grade, the 8-year-old came up with a new way to help the planet: running the 1.5 miles to P. S. 81. And Jonathan promised his son he’d join him for as long as he wanted.
“We did a test run one day in August, and decided to give it a go. To be honest, I thought he’d blink after it got really cold or rainy, but he never did,” Jonathan said. He recalled one day when the weather was particularly bad. “It’s really raining out there today,” he told Simon. “And Simon said, ‘Well then we’re going to get wet!’ He took pride in toughing it out, and it became a really fun family routine.”
Since the start, Simon has run with his dad and their black dog, Lola, and has even inspired his mom, Nicole Sin Quee, to join in. They soon became known as “the family that runs to school”.
1. What made Simon different from his classmates? (no more than 10 words)2. Why did Simon usually go to school by car in the second grade? (no more than 15 words)
3. How do you understand the underlined part in the fourth paragraph? (no more than 15words)
4. How did Simon inspire his mom? (no more than 10 words)
5. What are your “green” measures? Please explain. (no more than 20 words)
2 . Afroz Shah, a lawyer in Mumbai, hasn’t had a weekend off in four years. But he hasn’t spent this time preparing for
His mission? Saving the world’s oceans from
It’s a calling he found in 2015 after moving to a community in Mumbai called Versova Beach. He had played there as a child and was
“The whole beach was like a
In October 2015, Shah began
For Shah, the work has always been a
He’s now spent 209 weekends on this mission,
“This world talks too much. I think we must talk
| A．teaching | B．court | C．housework | D．cleaning |
| A．river | B．soil | C．plastic | D．oil |
| A．upset | B．excited | C．delighted | D．hesitant |
| A．grown | B．changed | C．reserved | D．protected |
| A．pure | B．golden | C．shiny | D．visible |
| A．carpet | B．curtain | C．painting | D．photograph |
| A．temporary | B．permanent | C．ugly | D．pretty |
| A．sticks to | B．keeps off | C．gives back | D．ends up |
| A．killer | B．cleaner | C．guest | D．decoration |
| A．sweeping | B．attacking | C．visiting | D．beautifying |
| A．pulling | B．thinking | C．picking | D．looking |
| A．came | B．failed | C．went | D．spread |
| A．involved | B．lived | C．stuck | D．paid |
| A．easy | B．tough | C．personal | D．general |
| A．known | B．regarded | C．decided | D．honored |
| A．cause | B．case | C．position | D．fame |
| A．requiring | B．rejecting | C．inviting | D．inspiring |
| A．originally | B．finally | C．politically | D．theoretically |
| A．fewer | B．less | C．better | D．worse |
| A．honor | B．beauty | C．hope | D．love |
1.对代表团表示欢迎；
2.介绍你校的环保活动(如离开教室关闭电源；节约用水；垃圾分类；书籍的循环使用等)；
3.环保活动对学校和个人的影响。
注意：
1.字数不少于80词，勿提及真实学校和姓名；
2.可适当增加细节是内容充实，行文连贯；
3.开头已给出，不计入总词数。
Good morning ladies and gentlemen,
You are welcome to visit our school!
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Trees are useful to man in three very important ways: they provide him with wood and other products; they give him shade; they help to prevent drought and floods.
Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, man has not realized that the third of these services is the most important. To make money from the trees, he has cut them down in large numbers, only to find that without them he has lost the best friends he had.
Two-thousand years ago, a rich and powerful country cut down-its trees to build warships, with which to gain itself an empire. It gained the empire, but since the trees were cut down, its soil became hard and poor. When the empire fell to pieces, the home county found itself faced by floods and hunger.
Even where a government realizes the importance of an enough supply of trees, it is difficult for it to let the villagers see this. The villagers want wood to cook their food with, and they can earn money by selling wood to the townsmen. They are usually too lazy or too careless to plant and look after new trees. So, unless the government has a good system of control or can educate the villagers, the forests will not get protected. This does not only mean that the villagers’ sons and grandsons will have fewer trees. The results are even more serious. Where there are trees, their roots break the soil up, allowing the rain to sink in, which makes the soil stick together and prevents it being washed away easily. Where there are no tree, the rainfall son hard ground and flows away on the surface, causing floods and carrying away with it the rich top-soil, in which crops grow so well. When all the top-soil is gone, nothing remains but worthless desert.
1. Why do men cut down trees in large numbers in many places? (No more than 10 words)2. What happened to the soil after trees were cut down in the rich and powerful country? (No more than 5 words)
3. What should the government do to protect the trees? (No more than 15 words)
4. What does the underlined phrase “sink in” in the last paragraph mean in English? (No more than 5 words)
5. Do you think it is important to protect trees? Why do you think so? (No more than 20 words)
5 . As we enjoy the summer ocean waves along the beaches, we may think nervously about Steven Spielberg’s Jaws and the great fear that sharks inspire in us.
Yet we are happy to see global efforts to protect the declining number of sharks. The world has realized that we need the species, like sharks, to keep a balanced ecosystem. Sharks, in particular, are “in” these days. Thanks to good public policy and famous stars such as Jackie Chan and Ang Lee, killing sharks for fin soup is no longer cool.
The demand for shark fins has been rising for decades, threatening sharks with extinction (灭绝)—up to 100 million sharks are killed each year just for their fins. But we have started to reverse the trend, particularly in many areas of the United States and overseas where restaurants once proudly provided delicious shark fins on the menu.
In California, a ban on the sale and possession of shark fin soup has gone into effect this year through the efforts of Wild Aid and other organizations. Overseas marketing and public efforts featuring posters on public transportation systems and TV ads have been underway for the past few years. These efforts all show signs of success, on both the supply side and the demand side of trade in shark fins.
Actually, stopping the killing of sharks is part of a broader movement to stop the killing of wild animals and the buying and selling of wildlife products. These products come from hunting elephants, tigers and rhinos, besides killing marine life. Whether it is shark fin soup or ivory piano keys, killing animals is big business. The hunting of elephants in search of ivory tusks for luxury (奢侈的) goods has become a fall-scale war. The decrease of African elephant populations is alarming. Together with international partners, the United States is leading the worldwide effort to reduce demand for high-end products that rely on killing animals.
1. Why do people begin to make efforts to protect the declining number of sharks? (No more than 15 words)2. What’s the main reason for killing sharks? (No more than 10 Words)
3. Who helped California decide to ban the sale and possession of shark fin soup? (No more than 5 Words)
4. What does the underlined word “reverse” in Paragraph 3 mean? (1 word)
5. In your opinion, what’s the best way to stop killing animals? (No more than 20 words)
1.保护环境是我们的职责。
2.我们要养成环保的习惯(例如绿色出行，不乱扔垃圾等)
3.发出环保的号召。
注意：1.词数：120左右
2.开头结尾已给出，可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯
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Are you aged between 14 and 19 years old? Do you care about your local environment? Would you like to help make the area you live in better, cleaner, safer and friendlier? If your answers are ‘yes’, ‘yes’ and ‘yes’, then read on! A local organization is carrying out a project, giving money to groups of teenagers who want to become active citizens. Here are a few easy things you could do to get started.
Meeting the neighbors. Everybody needs good neighbors. Knock on people’s doors and find out what they would like to improve in your area. Set a date for a meeting and then make some plans together. If you don’t want to go round to their houses, then you could always put a note through their doors.
Neighborhood watch. It is very popular in the UK. If you go away on holiday and leave your house, it’s very nice to know that a neighbor is keeping an eye on it. It’s a good way to make the area you live in safer.
Lending a hand. There are often elderly people living in the neighborhood who may not be able to do the things that you can. Offer to do their shopping once a week, look after their gardens for them or maybe walk their dogs!
No littering. Nobody likes picking up other people’s rubbish, but a clean street can make all the difference. Go out once or twice a week and see what you can find. You never know, one day you might find something valuable!
Just tell us what you want to do. Then we’ll send you more information.
1. What is the aim of the project? (no more than 15 words)2. Who is asked to take part in the project? (no more than 15 words)
3. What does the underlined words “lending a hand” mean in English? (no more than 6 words)
4. How often are the teenagers advised to get around and pick up rubbish? (no more than 5 words)
5. What will you do if you become a member of the project? Why? (no more than 25 words)
8 . A major new facility to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere has started operating in Iceland, which is a boost to an emerging technology that experts say could eventually play an important role in reducing greenhouse gases.
The plant in southwest Iceland is the biggest of its kind, its builder says. It is able to capture 900 tons of CO2 every year but it needs heat and electricity to work. It is using energy produced from waste and is built on the roof of a waste incineration plant, and through the burning of rubbish, energy is generated.
Human-sized fans are built into a series of boxes. They take CO2 out of the air, catching it in spongelike filters (过滤器). The filters are blasted with heat, freeing the gas, which is then mixed with water and pumped deep into deep underground basalt caves, where over time it turns into dark-gray stone. Pumping CO2 into the ground is just one way to deal with it. The makers are also selling the gas to be used again. The CO2 can be captured just a few 100 miles away. It is pumped through an underground pipeline directly into a greenhouse. Vegetables and plants love CO2 and higher concentrations of the gas within the greenhouse improve the growth of plants.
By 2050, humanity will need to pull nearly a billion metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year through direct air capture technology to achieve carbon neutral goals, according to International Energy Agency recommendations. The plant in Iceland will be able to capture 4000 metric tons annually — just a small amount of what will be necessary, but an engineer in Climeworks, the company that built it, says it can grow rapidly as efficiency improves and costs decrease.
“This is a market that does not yet exist, but a market that urgently needs to be built,” said Christoph Gebald who co-founded Climeworks. “This plant that we have here is really the blueprint to further increase the size and really industrialize.”
1. What do we know about the carbon capture facility from paragraph 2?| A．It is built at high altitudes. | B．It uses waste to produce power. |
| C．It makes Iceland free of air pollution. | D．lt produces lots of heat during operation. |
| A．The methods of breaking down CO2. |
| B．The approaches to reusing waste gas. |
| C．The necessity of building greenhouses. |
| D．The workings of the carbon-catching plant. |
| A．It will decrease the cost of energy production. |
| B．It can help reach the carbon neutral goals in advance. |
| C．It will speed up the reduction of CO2 levels in the air. |
| D．It may replace the traditional carbon storage system. |
| A．The capture of CO2 in the atmosphere is able to kill many birds with one stone. |
| B．CO2 will be delivered to greenhouses after being turned into dark-gray stones. |
| C．A major new market to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere has started operating. |
| D．The plants in Iceland greenhouses can capture a small amount of CO2. |
| A．Ambiguous. | B．Neutral. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Supportive. |
9 . It is important to learn how to protect our environment. Here is a 5R rule for us:
Reduce: If you want to reduce the waste, you should use things wisely. A large number of trees are being cut down to make paper. If everyone uses paper wastefully, soon we would not have any trees left. Other things are also being wasted, and people don’t know what to do with the waste in big cities. So it is necessary to reduce the waste.
Reuse: You should always think of reusing the usable things before throwing them away. Give your clothes you do not use or the ones which are too small to the poor. In a family, you may pass on such clothes to younger brothers or sisters.
Recycle: Bottles, cans and paper cups can be easily recycled. By doing so, we can save lots of money. For example, coke cans are sent to a factory, where they are smashed (粉碎) and melted and the metal things are made for new coke cans.
Recover: When you buy a box of apples, there may be a few rotten ones, you have two choices: one is to throw the whole apple away, or you could cut off the rotten parts and eat the good parts.
Repair: If one of the legs of your table is broken, you can repair it. If you want to change for better ones, it is better for you to sell the old things or give them to other people who can use them after repairing them. It is true that North America is a “throw away” society, but the time has come to change our way of life so that we can protect our environment. Every one of us should try our best.
1. The “Reduce” rule mainly require us ________.| A．to use things wisely | B．to cut down many trees |
| C．to use a lot of paper | D．to throw away our old clothes |
| A．throwing them away |
| B．giving them to the poor |
| C．passing them on to younger brothers or sisters |
| D．both B and C |
①melt them ②collect the used cans
③smash them flat ④send them to a factory
| A．①②③④ | B．①④③② | C．②④③① | D．③①②④ |
| A．to cover waste things with earth | B．to throw the whole things away |
| C．to throw waste things away | D．to get back the useful parts |
| A．selling them | B．putting them away |
| C．repairing them | D．throwing them away |
10 . Earth is a big place, but size isn’t everything. The planet’s richest ecosystems are in rapid decline, forcing us to acknowledge countless creatures worldwide are running out of room.
85% of all species on the IUCN Red List are endangered due to many forms of habitat loss, from complete deforestation to less obvious effects of pollution and climate change. Every species needs a certain amount of habitat to find food, shelter and mates, but for a growing number of animals, the space where their ancestors found those things is now overrun by humans. As habitats decline, animals also grow more vulnerable to secondary dangers like disease or conflict with people.
According to many scientists and conservationists, the best strategy to avoid a dramatic loss of biodiversity is to set aside half of Earth’s surface area for wildlife. That might sound like a big sacrifice at first, but upon closer inspection, it’s still an incredibly sweet deal for us: One species gets half the planet, and all other species must share the other half. This idea has been around for years, confirmed in programmes like the WILD Foundation’s “Nature Needs Half” campaign, but it has gained more different opinions recently. And it may now have one of its most forceful arguments yet, thanks to a 2016 book by well-known biologist E. O. Wilson titled Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life.
Half-Earth, therefore, isn’t so different from today’s Earth. We’re already doing many of the right things, as Wilson recently told the University of California-Berkeley’s Breakthroughs magazine. We still have a few big biodiversity zones left, and others that could still recover. We just need to protect as many wilderness areas as we can, fill in gaps wherever possible and do no further harm. “I’m sure we can go from 10% to 50% coverage, land and sea,” Wilson says. “It could be large reserves that still exist, like in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, in the taiga, the major wilderness areas of Congo, in Papua New Guinea, the Amazon—these can be made inviolate reserves; they can be pieced together.”
1. What is the main cause of wildlife’s rapid decline?| A．Habitat loss. | B．Terrible disease. |
| C．Conflict with people. | D．Poor living conditions. |
| A．The method to save our planet. | B．The real profession of E.O. Wilson. |
| C．The solution to avoiding wildlife decline. | D．The origin of “Nature Needs Half” campaign. |
| A．Curious. | B．Confused. | C．Concerned. | D．Confident. |
| A．Sharing the Earth with other animals. | B．Changing our attitude toward wildlife. |
| C．Increasing the population of wild animals. | D．Protecting the existing habitat for wildlife. |
