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)
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)
3 . 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. |
4 . 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. |
内容包括：
1. 全球变暖的影响；
2. 阻止全球变暖的生活方式；
3. 表达期待。
注意：1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear fellow students,
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Li Hua
1. 目前汽车带来的空气污染和交通堵塞问题；
2. 骑自行车的益处，既能环保，有利健康等。
注意：1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
参考词汇：低碳生活 (low-carbon life)；节能 (energy saving)
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7 . Sports can help you keep fit and get in touch with nature. However, whether you are on the mountains, in the waves, or on the grassland, you should be aware that your sport of choice might have great influence on the environment.
Some sports are resource-hungry. Golf. as you may know, eats up not only large areas of countryside, but also tons of water. Besides, all sorts of chemicals and huge amounts of energy are used to keep its courses (球场) in good condition. This causes major environmental effects. For example, in the dry regions of Portugal and Spain, golf is often held responsible for serious water shortage in some local areas.
There are many environment-friendly sports, Power walking is one of them that you could take up today. You don't need any special equipment except a good pair of shoes; and you don’t have to worry about resources and your purse. Simple and free, power walking can also keep you fit. If you walk regularly, it will be good for your heart and bones. Experts say that 20 minutes of power walking daily can make you feel less anxious, sleep well and have better weight control.
Whatever sport you take up, you can make it greener by using environment-friendly equipment and buying products made from recycled materials. But the final goal should be “green gyms”. They are better replacements (代替物) for traditional health clubs and modern sports centers. Members of green gyms play sports outdoors, in the countryside or other open spaces. There is no special requirement for you to start your membership. And best of all, it’s free.
1. Which of the following is the author most probably in favor of?| A．Playing basketball in a gym. | B．Motor racing in the desert. |
| C．Cycling around a lake. | D．Swimming in a sports center. |
| A．It is popular in Portugal and Spain. |
| B．It needs water and electricity to keep its courses green. |
| C．It pollutes the earth with chemicals and wastes. |
| D．It causes water shortages around the world |
| A．it uses fewer resources | B．it improves our health |
| C．it is an outdoors sport | D．it is recommended by experts |
（1）发出倡议。
（2）沙尘暴给人们生活的影响。
（3）减少沙尘暴的建议（多种树，提高环保意识等）
1.词数：100词左右；
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
3.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
参考词汇：沙尘暴sandstorm
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