1 . Blue Planet II's latest episode (情节) focuses on how plastic is having a destructive effect on the ocean and slowly poisoning our sea creatures. Researchers recently also found that sea creatures living in the deepest place on Earth, the Mariana Trench, have plastic in their stomachs. Indeed, oceans are drowning in plastic.

Though it seems that the world couldn't possibly function without plastics, plastics are a remarkably recent invention. The first plastic bags were introduced in the 1950s, the same decade that plastic packaging began gaining popularity in the United States. This growth has happened so fast that science is still catching up with the change. Plastics pollution research, for instance, is still a very early science.

We put all these plastics into the environment, but we still don't really know what the outcomes are going to be. What we do know, though, is disturbing. Ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. One in three leatherback turtles, which often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, have been found with plastic in their bellies. Ninety percent of seabirds are now eating plastics on a regular basis. By 2050, that figure is expected to rise to 100 percent.

And it's not just wildlife that is threatened by the plastics in our seas. Humans are consuming plastics through the seafood we eat. I could understand why some people see ocean plastic as a disaster, worth mentioning in the same breath as climate change. But ocean plastic is not as complicated as climate change. There are no ocean trash deniers (否认者), at least so far. To do something about it, we don't have to remake our planet energy system.

This is not a problem where we don' t know what the solution is. We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to deal with it. We know how to recycle. We can all start by thinking twice before we use single-use plastic products. Things that may seem ordinary, like using a reusable bottle or a reusable bag-when taken collectively, these choices really do make a difference.

1. Why is plastics pollution research still a very early science?

A．The plastics pollution research is too difficult.

B．Plastics have produced less pollution than coal.

C．Plastics have gained popularity too fast for science to catch up.

D．The world couldn't possibly function without plastics.

2. How did the author support his opinion in Paragraph 3?

A．By citing quotes from leading experts.	B．By making a comparison and contrast.
C．By listing examples from his own experience.	D．By presenting solid statistics.

3. What does the author intend to tell us in the last paragraph?

A．We reap what we sow.	B．The shortest answer is doing.
C．All things are difficult before they are easy.	D．Actions speak louder than words.

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．The oceans become choked with plastic.	B．Ocean plastic is a global issue.
C．Blue Planet II has left viewers heartbroken.	D．Plastics gain in popularity all over the world.

2 . Greening the Kubuqi Desert

China has seen great achievements in improving the environment and green development over the past 70 years. Solid efforts have been made to fight pollution and continuously improve the environment.

    1     It caused deadly sandstorms, which arrived like big black walls reaching up into the sky.

As President Xi Jinping has said, clear waters and green mountains are invaluable assets（资产）.     2    

A series of campaigns have been carried out by the central government to improve the environment.     3     Thanks to the program, forest coverage in China had increased from 12 percent in the 1980s to nearly 23 percent last year.

    4     It has been recognized by the UN for the development of a desert eco-industry that has slowed desertification（沙漠化）.

In Kubuqi, a desert in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Elion has greened 600,000 hectares of land and helped lift more than 102,000 people out of poverty through the development of solar energy and tourism, as well as planting herbs for traditional Chinese medicine.

In addition, the group’s techniques have also been used in many ecological（生态的）programs, including Yangtze River Ecological Park and Qilian Mountain National Park.

“    5     With the help of modern technologies, such as drones, AI, big data and the internet of things, we are sure to achieve greater success,” said Ao Baoping, chief executive officer of Elion Green Land Technology.

A．Once the environment gets better, we will live a happier life.

B．For example, in 1998, China started the Natural Forest Protection Program.

C．Desertification was a serious problem in the 1990s.

D．Another example of the campaign is the Elion Resources Group.

E．Pollution is getting worse and worse nowadays.

F．Efforts to create “green” areas have played a crucial role in the country’s fight against desertification.

G．We will come up with new ways to improve our ability to control the sand.

3 . How to Be Eco-friendly

If you’d love to be more eco-friendly but don’t know where to begin, start with a few small changes.    1    

Lowering Your Energy.

Turn off lights and unplug power strips (电源插板) that you’re not using.     2     Since some devices can still use energy even when they’re turned off, turn off these power strips at night to completely cut off energy use. If you need to leave your computer, or TV on, try setting it to sleep mode instead of simply leaving it on.

Using public transportation.

    3     Keeping cars off the road in rush hours can also improve the air quality. If you do need to drive somewhere, ask friends if they’d like to carpool (拼车) , so fewer cars are on the road.

    4    

Say no to unnecessary plastic straws, lids, and bags and stop using plastic wrap and plastic containers for food storage. Instead, you can use reusable water bottles made of sustainable material like glass, bamboo, and ceramic.

Considering growing a plant.

They add more oxygen to the air, which means a less polluted air. If you don’t have a green thumb, choose some plants that are rather easy to look after.     5     If possible, grow more than one plant.

A．Reduce your gas consumption and carbon emissions by walking, biking, or taking the bus.

B．Here are some suggestions for you to live an eco-friendly life.

C．Use less energy during the hot summer months and cold winter season.

D．This is an easy way to reduce energy use.

E．Using items more than once.

F．Cutting Back on Plastics and Waste.

G．“Lucky Bamboo” is especially good for that, since it demands nearly no attention.

4 . Let's take a minute to think about the water we use. The human body is 60% water and we need to drink lots of water to be healthy. When we are thirsty we just go to the kitchen and fill a glass with clean water.

    1    For example, farmers, who produce the food we eat, use water to make the plants grow. When we turn on a light or switch on a TV or a computer we use energy and we need water to produce this energy.

The truth is that we are lucky enough to have clean water whenever we want，but this is not the case for many people around the world.    2    That's around one in 10 people in the world. If we drink dirty water，we can catch diseases from the bacteria and become ill. Every year over 500，000 children die from diarrhea(腹泻)from dirty water. That's around 1，400 children every day！Also，in some countries children walk many kilometres every day to get water.    3    Therefore，they don't have time to learn how to read or write and don't get an education.

    4    On this day every year，countries around the world hold events to educate people about the problems of dirty water and that clean water is something that everyone should have around the world. At one school in the UK，children between the ages of 10 and 15 walk 6km with six litres of water.    5    People give them money to do this and all the money helps get clean water to as many people as possible around the world.

A．We use water indirectly too.

B．Every system in our body depends on water to function.

C．It is to inspire people to learn more about water-related problems

D．If children walk many hours a day to get water，they can't go to school.

E．Did you know that around 750 million people do not have clean water to drink？

F．In 1993 the United Nations decided that March 22nd is the World Day for Water.

G．In this way，they know how it feels to walk a long distance carrying heavy bottles.

5 . Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is road testing a new way to keep winter roads ice-free – by spreading on them cheese brine, the salty liquid used to make soft cheese, like mozzarella.

Wisconsin, also called "America's Dairyland," is famous for its cheese. The state produced 2.8 billion pounds of cheese last year! As a result, there was a lot of leftover cheese brine. Disposing of(处置)the brine can be expensive. So what should cheese makers do with the waste?

Normally, towns use rock salt to de-ice streets. The salt lowers waters' freezing point, causing ice to melt(融化). But using cheese brine could help both cheese producers and cities save money, while keeping roads safe. Cheese brine has salt in it, which, like the rock salt, helps lower water's freezing point.

In addition to saving money, cheese brine could also be a more environment-friendly option. Many people suspect that all the rock salt used every winter is harming the environment.

Rock salt is made of sodium chloride, the sane con-pound (化合物)in ordinary table salt. Sounds harmless, right? But while you probably add only a small amount of salt to your food, road crews spread about 20 million tons of salt on U.S. Roads every year!

The chemical washes off roads and goes into the ground. There it can pollute drinking water, harm plants. and eat away soil. By spreading cheese brine on streets before adding a layer of rock salt, Milwaukee may be able to cut its rock salt use by 30 percent.

Cheese brine has a downside too – a shell similar to that of bad milk. "I don't really mind it," Emil Norby told Modern Farmer magazine. He works for one of Wisconsin's county highway commissions and came up with the idea of using cheese brine. "Our roads smell like Wisconsin!" he said.

1. Why can cheese brine help keep winter roads ice-free?

A．It is soft.

B．It contains salt.

C．It is warm.

D．It has milk in it.

2. What is a benefit of using cheese urine on roads?

A．Improving air quality.	B．Increasing sales of rock salt.
C．Reducing water pollution.	D．Saving the cheese industry.

3. Milwaukee's new way to de-ice streets may be an example of_______________.

A．barking up the wrong tree	B．putting the cart before the horse
C．robbing Peter to pay Paul	D．killing two birds with one stone

6 . Record fires sweeping across the Amazon this month have been catching global headlines as scientists and environmental groups are worried that they will worsen climate change and threaten biodiversity(生物多样性).

As the largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon is   often called “the lungs of   the world”. It is also home to about 3 million species of plants and animals, and 1 million local people. The vast lands of rainforest play an important role in the world’s ecosystem because they take in heat instead of it being reflected back into the atmosphere. They also store carbon dioxide (二氧化碳)and produce oxygen, making sure that less carbon is given off, mitigating the effects of climate change.

“Any forest destroyed is a threat to biodiversity and the people who use that biodiversity,” Thomas Lovejoy, an ecologist at George Mason University told National Geographic. “The shocking threat is that a lot of carbon goes into the atmosphere,” he stressed. “Facing the global climate change, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

Data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show that the number of forest fires in Brazil quickly increased by 82 percent from January to August this year from a year ago. A total of 71,497 forest fires were recorded in the country in the first eight months of 2019, up from 39,194 in the same period in 2018, INPE said. “It’s reported that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased something between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months,” Carlos Nobre, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Brazil owns about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, whose drop could have severe results for global climate and rainfall. The size of the area ruined by fires has yet to be determined, but the emergency has transcended(超出）Brazil’s borders, reaching Peruvian, Paraguayan and Bolivian areas.

1. What is the second paragraph mainly talking about?

A．The effects of climate change.

B．The role of the Amazon rainforest.

C．The results of the Amazon rainforest fires.

D．The causes of the decreasing biodiversity.

2. Which of the following best explains “mitigating” underlined in Paragraph2?

A．Easing.	B．Causing.
C．Worsening.	D．Benefiting

3. What can we learn from Thomas’s and Antonio’s words?

A．The biodiversity makes the rainforests unique.

B．The rainforest fires result in serious consequences.

C．The global climate crisis brings more rainforest fires.

D．The dry weather leads to the rainforest fires.

4. Which section of a magazine is this text probably taken from?

A．Sports and music.	B．Science and technology.
C．Nature and geography.	D．Business and culture.

7 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Where is the Beef

Most people like to eat meat. As they grow richer they eat more of it. For individuals, that is good. Meat is nutritious. In particular, it packs much more protein per kilogram than plants do. However, animals have to eat plants to put on weight - so much so that feeding them accounts for about a third of harvested grain. Farm animals consume 8 per cent of the world’s water supply, and they produce around 15 per cent of unnatural greenhouse-gas emissions. More farm animals then, could mean more environmental trouble.

    1     That as created a business opportunity. Though unwilling to adopt a vegetarian approach to diet, these people are keen on food that looks and tastes as if it came from farm animals, but didn’t.

The simplest way to satisfy this demand is to concentrate on substitutes for familiar products. “Meat” made directly from plants, rather than indirectly, via an animal’s metabolism, is already on sale for the table and barbecue. Impossible Foods, a Californian firm, has deconstructed hamburgers, to work out what gives them their texture (质感) and flavour, and then either found or grown botanical equivalents to these.     2    

For those who really want to eat steak while saving the planet, a second approach maybe more promising. That is “clean” meat made by taking animal cells and growing them in a factory to form strips of muscle. Steak is not yet on the menu, but burgers and meatballs may soon be. The field leader is Mosa Meat, a Dutch firm staffed by scientists.     3    By 2020, it hopes, the price of making them will have come down to about $US 11 each.

There is one more novel source of meaty protein that does not involve farm animals -at least, farm animals of the conventional sort. This is insects. Locusts (蝗虫), for example, are about 70 per cent protein. Insects do have to be fed, but being cold-blooded, they convert more food into body mass than warm-blooded mammals do and, being boneless, more of that body-mass is edible.     4     About 2 billion people eat insects already, but it seems few of us are willing to try. Changing that could be a hard sell. Grind (碾碎) the bugs up and use them as ingredients, though, and your customers might find them more acceptable. Hargol FoodTech, an Israeli startup, plans to do just that. Locustburgers, anybody?

A．The first burger it made, in 2013, cost around $300,000.

B．It launched its plant-based burger in a number of restaurants in America last year.

C．Per edible gram, insects need only a twelfth of the food that cattle require.

D．The problem is marketing.

E．Plant-based "meat" products have made it onto menus and supermarket shelves.

F．Some consumers, particularly in the rich West, get this.

8 . A study has found that warmer waters off North America's West Coast caused many kinds of sea life to move farther north than ever before.

The study was a project of scientists from the University of California, Davis. The scientists examined waters off the coast of Northern California in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The researchers say they recognized a local of 67 species（ 物种）between 2014 and 2016, during what was described as a "marine heat wave". Marine heatwaves were explained in the study as "period of extreme sea surface temperatures lasting for days to months". The 2014-2016 heatwave is thought to be the largest ever recorded. The warn water later moved south toward California.

The warmer water were partly a product of El Niño conditions during the same period, researcher noted. El Niño develops when winds off the coast of South America weaken. This enabled warm water in the western Pacific to move eastward. El Niño often causes ocean temperatures in the area to rise between 2 to 4 degrees Celsius, the study found.

The researchers reported that 37 of the 67 species they studied had never before been observed so far north as California. These creatures are native to an area hundreds of kilometers to the south, mainly around Baja California in Mexico. A few were even found north of California, off the state of Oregon. The northward travel of so many different sea creatures was considered "unprecedented"（史无前例的）by the researchers. Among the species found in the study were a meat-eating sea slug that hunts other sea slugs, a sea snail "butterfly" and purple-lined jellyfish. Another unexpected visitor was the pelagic red crab, which researchers said had only been found in areas off the coast of Mexico.

Scientists involved in the study believe the findings can provide valuable information for knowing future sea life reactions to warming oceans.

1. What is a marine heat wave according to the passage?

A．An ocean with rough surface.

B．A wave with low temperatures.

C．A period of warmer ocean surface water.

D．A species living in extreme weather.

2. What contributes to El Niño conditions?

A．Warmer waters.	B．Weakened winds off South America.
C．Colder sea surface.	D．Species moving northward.

3. Why does the author mention the men-eat in sea lug in paragraph 4?

A．To point out that ocean environment becomes worse.

B．To suggest that sea creatures need separate living space.

C．To prove that many kinds of sea life can adapt to warmer waters.

D．To evidence that ocean temperature along California are higher than before.

4. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．The heatwaves disturb the life of many sea creatures.

B．The increased temperature benefits many sea creatures.

C．Sea life reactions can be valuable to predict future heatwaves.

D．The heatwaves cause many unexpected visitors to move southward.

9 . Plans to bring wild tigers back to their original home , their historical range(历史分布范围） in the Ili­Balkhash region, have been announced by Kazakhstan( 哈萨克斯坦 )   and an agreement with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to conduct a tiger reintroduction program has been signed . “It will not only bring wild tigers back to their original home, but also protect the unique ecosystem of the Ili­Balkhash region，” said Askar Myrzakhmetov, the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

If successful, Kazakhstan will be the first country in the world to bring wild tigers back to an entire region where they have died out for nearly half a century. Tiger reintroduction projects have only been achieved within national borders and in areas that are considered current tiger habitats . Kazakhstan's tiger reintroduction program is unique and it badly requires the restoration of a vast forest that is part of the wild tiger's historical range.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, wild tigers have lost over 90 per cent of their historical range. Wild tigers have completely disappeared from the region since the late 1940s, due to the loss of habitat. To prepare for the return of wild tigers, on 1st January 2018 Kazakhstan will set up a new nature reserve in the southwestern Ili­Balkhash, in order to restore the unique forest habitat. This will include the protection of existing wildlife, and reintroducing important prey ( 猎物 ), such as the endangered wild Bactrian deer（中亚红鹿).

Restoring tigers will also help protect Lake Balkhash and prevent it from repeating the fate of the Aral Sea, formerly the world's fourth largest lake and now 10 percent of its original size. “The hard work remains ahead of us. We have to spare no effort to make this region ready for tigers and involve all the relevant people to make this happen. That means dealing with illegal activities, having these people who govern parks be well­trained and equipped, increasing prey populations and involving local communities，” said Ekaterina Vorobyeva, Director of the WWF program.

1. What is Askar Myrzakhmetov's attitude toward the tiger reintroduction program?

A．Doubtful.	B．Favorable.
C．Concerned.	D．Disapproving.

2. What made the wild tigers disappear in the Ili­Balkhash region?

A．The increasing loss of prey.	B．The evolution of the species.
C．The lack of natural living places.	D．The serious environmental pollution.

3. Which measure may be taken for the reintroduction of tigers?

A．Regulating human activities.	B．Limiting the number of prey.
C．Building a reserve for tigers only.	D．Training tigers to be more adaptable.

4. What is the best title of the passage?

A．Efforts to restore forests in Kazakhstan

B．Bringing tigers back home to Kazakhstan

C．Attempts to handle illegal activities effectively

D．Preventing tigers disappearing in Kazakhstan

10 . There was a time when a trip to the supermarket in the United States often ended with a seemingly simple question from the cashier, "Paper or plastic？"Well, which type of bag would you choose？

While both types of bags have some influence on the environment, it has long been supposed that paper bags are kinder. They are made from a renewable source, are broken down easily, burn without giving off thick smoke and can be recycled. However, the producing process behind paper bags uses more energy than that of plastic ones. How can this be true？

Studies show that paper bag production requires four times as much energy as plastic bag production.

And the amount of water used to make them is twenty times higher. Besides, the influence on forests is very serious. It takes about fourteen million trees to produce ten billion paper bags, which happen to be the number of bags used in the United States yearly. In terms of recycling, the idea that paper bags are more environment friendly than plastic ones can be quickly discarded. Research shows it requires about 98% less energy to recycle plastic than it does to recycle paper.

Even though paper bags might be more harmful than plastic ones, plastic still seems to be considered as the more harmful of the two by governments. In Ireland, for example, a tax has been introduced to discourage the use of plastic bags. People have to pay 22 cents for every plastic bag, and as a result, their use has dropped quickly.

There’s no doubt that it makes more sense to reuse these bags. However, we don’t seem to be doing that at present. That may be because they fall apart quickly. If so, cloth bags are a better choice, but still, their production also has a bad influence on the environment. So what to do? How should we answer the question of “Paper or plastic?” It seems that we first need to ask ourselves one more general question: “What can I do to help the environment?”

1. The question at the end of Paragraph 1 is used to ________.

A．introduce points for discussion

B．tell readers how to save money

C．express the author's doubts

D．show the kindness of the cashier

2. Compared with plastic bags, paper bags ________.

A．take more time to break down

B．require less energy to recycle

C．need more water to produce

D．have less influence on forests

3. The underlined word “discarded” in Paragraph 3 probably means "________".

A．share	B．put forward
C．discuss	D．give up

4. Which question does the author probably hope the cashier ask?

A．Paper or cloth?

B．A new bag or your own one?

C．A small bag or big one?

D．Paper or plastic？