1 . 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 |
| 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 |
| A．share | B．put forward |
| C．discuss | D．give up |
| A．Paper or cloth? |
| B．A new bag or your own one? |
| C．A small bag or big one? |
| D．Paper or plastic？ |
2 . Kazakhstan announced plans to bring wild tigers back to their historical range in the Ili-Balkhash region, and signed an agreement with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to conduct a tiger reintroduction program. “It will not only bring wild tigers back to their ancestral home, but also protect the unique ecosystem of the Ili-Balkhash region,” said Askar Myrzakhmetov, Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
If the plans are 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 can only be achieved within national borders and in areas that are considered current tiger habitats. Kazakhstan’s tiger reintroduction program is unique and it desperately 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 the habitat. To prepare for the return of wild tigers, Kazakhstan will set up a new nature reserve in the southwestern Ili-Balkhash, in order to restore (使恢复) 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.
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 per cent 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 stakeholders (利益相关者) to make this happen. That means dealing with illegal activities, having well trained and equipped rangers, increasing prey populations and involving local communities,” said Ekaterina Vorobyeva, Director of WWF program.
1. What is Askar Myrzakhmetov’s attitude toward the tiger reintroduction program?| A．Doubtful. | B．Favorable. |
| C．Concerned | D．Disapproving. |
| A．The increasing loss of prey. |
| B．The evolution of the species. |
| C．The lack of natural living places. |
| D．The serious environmental pollution. |
| A．Controlling human activities. |
| B．Limiting prey. |
| C．Building a reserve for tigers only. |
| D．Training tigers to be more adaptable. |
| A．Efforts to restore forests in Kazakhstan |
| B．Bringing wild tigers back home in Kazakhstan |
| C．Attempts to handle illegal activities effectively |
| D．Preventing wild tigers disappearing in Kazakhstan |
3 . Although the idea of “zero emission, net carbon-positive, sustainable (可持续)” development was promoted worldwide, most cities are at a loss what to do or even some have objected to it. But in Liuzhou, a city in southern China, attitudes could not be more different.
The Liuzhou Municipality Urban Planning Bureau has signed up Italian architect Stefano Boeri, the father of the forest city movement, to build a self-contained community for up to 30,000 people. He is the go-to man for such projects thanks to the success of his “vertical forests”, two residential (住宅的) towers. Completed in 2014, they remove up to 17.5 tons of soot (煤烟) from the air each year, and a year later one of them was named Best Tall Building Worldwide.
The Liuzhou project is a much more ambitious undertaking, however. Its homes, hospitals, hotels, schools and offices will be built on a 340-acre site in what Boeri calls the first attempt to create an “urban environment that is really trying to find a balance with nature”. Its 100 species of plant life are expected to absorb almost 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 57 tons of pollutants per year, while at the same time producing 900 tons of life-giving oxygen.
Although the architects haven’t published the cost of the forest city, the Milan towers cost only five percent more than traditional skyscrapers.
The construction of his forest city at Liuzhou is set to begin in 2020, and there is still a great deal of planning and research required before a projected completion date can be set. However, Boeri remains optimistic about the project and has confidence in the soundness of his vision: “I really think that bringing forests into the city is a way to deal with global warming.”
1. What’s Liuzhou’s attitude towards the sustainable development?| A．Approving. | B．Cautious. | C．Unfavorable. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．He volunteered to do the project. |
| B．He is a famous architect in the world. |
| C．He is the father of the forest recovery. |
| D．He has gained experience in similar projects. |
| A．The architects. | B．The two towers. |
| C．Forests in the city. | D．The residents of the city. |
| A．To provide more jobs. | B．To bring forest into city. |
| C．To solve house shortage. | D．To improve the environment. |
4 . By the end of the century，if not sooner，the world’s oceans will be bluer and greener thanks to a warming climate，according to a new study.
At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny marine microorganisms(海洋微生物) called phytoplankton. Because of the way light reflects off the organisms，these phytoplankton create colourful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean colour varies from green to blue，depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas，while reducing it in other spots，leading to changes in the ocean's appearance.
Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface，where they pull carbon dioxide(二氧化碳) into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die，they bury carbon in the deep ocean，an important process that helps to regulate the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean's warming trend. Warming changes key characteristics of the ocean and can affect phytoplankton growth，since they need not only sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow，but also nutrients.
Stephanie Dutkiewicz，a scientist in MIT's Center for Global Change Science，built a climate model that projects changes to the oceans throughout the century. In a world that warms up by 3℃，it found that multiple changes to the colour of the oceans would occur. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters，such as those of the Arctic，a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton，and these areas will turn greener. “Not only are the quantities of phytoplankton in the ocean changing. ”she said，“but the type of phytoplankton is changing. ”
1. What are the first two paragraphs mainly about?| A．The various patterns at the ocean surface. |
| B．The cause of the changes in ocean colour. |
| C．The way light reflects off marine organisms. |
| D．The efforts to fuel the growth of phytoplankton. |
| A．Sensitive. | B．Beneficial |
| C．Significant | D．Unnoticeable |
| A．Phytoplankton play a declining role in the marine ecosystem. |
| B．Dutkiewicz's model aims to project phytoplankton changes |
| C．Phytoplankton have been used to control global climate |
| D．Oceans with more phytoplankton may appear greener. |
| A．To assess the consequences of ocean colour changes |
| B．To analyse the composition of the ocean food chain |
| C．To explain the effects of climate change on oceans |
| D．To introduce a new method to study phytoplankton |
Earth Day,
6 . How does an ecosystem(生态系统) work? What makes the populations of different species the way they are? Why are there so many flies and so few wolves? To find an answer, scientists have built mathematical models of food webs, noting who eats whom and how much each one eats.
With such models, scientists have found out some key principles operating in food webs. Most food webs, for instance, consist of many weak links rather than a few strong ones. When a predator(掠食动物) always eats huge numbers of a single prey(猎物), the two species are strongly linked; when a predator lives on various species, they are weakly linked. Food webs may be dominated by many weak links because that arrangement is more stable over the long term. If a predator can eat several species, it can survive the extinction(灭绝) of one of them. And if a predator can move on to another species that is easier to find when a prey species becomes rare, the switch allows the original prey to recover. The weak links may thus keep species from driving one another to extinction.
Mathematical models have also revealed that food webs may be unstable, where small changes of top predators can lead to big effects throughout entire ecosystems. In the 1960s, scientists proposed that predators at the top of a food web had a surprising amount of control over the size of populations of other species—including species they did not directly attack.
And unplanned human activities have proved the idea of top-down control by top predators to be true. In the ocean, we fished for top predators such as cod on an industrial scale, while on land, we killed off large predators such as wolves. These actions have greatly affected the ecological balance.
Scientists have built an early-warning system based on mathematical models. Ideally, the system would tell us when to adapt human activities that are pushing an ecosystem toward a breakdown or would even allow us to pull an ecosystem back from the borderline. Prevention is key, scientists say, because once ecosystems pass their tipping point(临界点), it is remarkably difficult for them to return.
1. What have scientists discovered with the help of mathematical models of food webs?| A．The living habits of species in food webs. |
| B．The rules governing food webs of the ecosystems. |
| C．The approaches to studying the species in the ecosystems. |
| D．The differences between weak and strong links in food webs. |
| A．has a wide food choice |
| B．can easily find new prey |
| C．sticks to one prey species |
| D．can quickly move to another place |
| A．The prey species they directly attack will die out. |
| B．The species they indirectly attack will turn into top predators. |
| C．The living environment of other species will remain unchanged. |
| D．The populations of other species will experience unexpected changes. |
| A．Uncontrolled human activities greatly upset ecosystems. |
| B．Rapid economic development threatens animal habitats. |
| C．Species of commercial value dominate other species. |
| D．Industrial activities help keep food webs stable. |
| A．By getting illegal practices under control. |
| B．By stopping us from killing large predators. |
| C．By bringing the broken-down ecosystems back to normal. |
| D．By signaling the urgent need for taking preventive action. |
7 . Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde has spent much of his time seeking artistic solutions(解决方案)to solve our environmental problems. His past projects include "Bioluminescent(生物发光)Trees" to light streets, a "Smog-Free Tower" to clean Beijing's polluted air. and "Gates of Light". which uses the headlamps of passing cars to light up the 60 floodgates of the Afsluitdijk, a major dam in the Netherlands. Now, he is hoping to use his skills to solve a pressing global problem-space junk!
Scientists guess that there are over 500，000 bits of large rubbish. To deal with the problem, Roosegaarde intends to achieve his goal by educating the public about the need of the situation and coming up with possible solutions. The plan. called the Space Waste Lab. started in October 2018 with a laser(激光)show in the Netherlands. The unique outdoor artwork of LEDs used real-time tracking information to point at pieces of space junk floating at altitudes of 200 to 20,000 kilometers. The experience was designed to make the public know more about how much space junk there are.
To find a solution, the designer has been thinking with experts. One of the projects being considered is "Shooting Stars"，which attempts to reintroduce the trash to the atmosphere in a controlled way. Upon reentry. the waste would burn in the atmosphere like a shooting star. Roosegaarde envisages that if successful .burning space trash could someday replace fireworks at large public events!
In September 2018。the RemoveDEBRIS satellite successfully sent a net to catch a target while orbiting at an altitude of about 300 kilometers(190 miles). Sometime this year. the capsule will set free a harpoon that has been designed to remove space trash. At the end of its task，RemoveDEBRIS will let go a sail to bring the satellite itself and hopefully some trash, back into the atmosphere where it will burn up.
1. What can we infer about Daan Roosegaarde?| A．He is too aggressive to put forward good plans. |
| B．He is creative in solving environmental problems. |
| C．He is fond of spending all of his time seeking art skills. |
| D．He is sensitive to art reflected in environmental projects. |
| A．To confirm real-time information about space trash. |
| B．To show the great beauty of LEDs to common people. |
| C．To raise public awareness of the amount of space trash. |
| D．To inspire people to consider the solution to space trash. |
| A．Suspect. | B．Demand. |
| C．Advise. | D．Imagine. |
| A．Bringing the satellite to atmosphere to burn. |
| B．Keeping trash traveling along its own orbit. |
| C．Taking the satellite away from atmosphere. |
| D．Removing space trash out of the capsule. |
1.活动情况简介；
2.活动的意义。
注意:1.词数100左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9 . It's important to learn how we can protect the environment. Here are 5R rules for us.
Reduce. If you want to reduce waste, you should use things more wisely.
Reuse. You should always think of reusing things before throwing them out. For example,
Recycle. Bottles, cans and paper can easily be recycled. By doing so we can save lots of time and money. For example,
Recover.
Repair. If one of the legs of your table is broken, you should repair it. If you want to buy something newer and better, it is better for you to sell the old table, or
Learn the rules to protect our environment. Let's try our best to make the earth cleaner and more beautiful.
| A．give the clothes you do not use or the ones which are too small to the poor. |
| B．coke cans are sent to a factory, where they are smashed flat and melted. |
| C．A large number of trees are being cut down to make paper. |
| D．Trees are planted every year. |
| E．give it to people who can use it after repairing it. |
| F．don’t throw it away if you can use it. |
| G．When you buy a box of apples, there may be a few rotten ones. |
10 . Schools consume a large amount of energy, which has a bad effect on the environment.
Use natural light when the sun is bright. It may not always be necessary for you to have the lights on in your classroom. There may be times of day when the sun is especially bright andenough for what you are doing in your classroom.
Set up a recycling station at your schooL Recycling is a great way to save energy because it reduces the need to produce new materials.
Get others involved.
| A．Postsigns about conserving energy. |
| B．Whether you are a teacher or a student. |
| C．Ifyour school does not have one. |
| D．Turn offyour computer when it's not used. |
| E．Shut down the lights when rooms are not in use. |
| F．Other times of day you might only need half ofthe lights. |
| G．If your school's garbage company offers recycling services |
