1 . When Purdue University researchers set out to develop a new paint, the goal was to create one that would reflect sunlight away from a building. It turns out they also set an official Guinness world record for the whitest paint on the planet.
“When we started this project about seven years ago, we had saving energy and fighting climate change in mind,” Professor Xiulin Ruan said.
The paint reflects 98.1% of solar radiation while also emitting infrared (红外线的) heat.
Because the paint absorbs less heat from the sun than it emits, a surface coated with this paint is cooled below the surrounding temperature without consuming power. Typical commercial white paint gets warmer rather than cooler, Paints on the market that are designed to reject heat reflect only 80%-90% of sunlight and can’t make surfaces cooler than their surroundings.
“Conventional air conditioners consume power that is often from burning fossil fuel. Meanwhile, while they move the heat from inside of a house to the outside, they turn the electricity into heat and leave even more heat to the surrounding and earth, further causing a heat island effect and warming up the Earth,” Professor Ruan told IFLScience.
“In contrast, our paint does not consume any power, and directly sends off all the heat to the deep space, thus helping cooling down the Earth. According to a previous model, painting 0.5-1% of the Earth’s surface (roofs, roads, cars, unused land, etc) with our paint will stop the warming trend. Painting many human made-structures would be a great way to fight the climate crisis in many ways. The paint is not yet available commercially and the scientists are working with a commercial company to speed up the paint production and put it on the market.
1. What’s the purpose of creating the whitest paint?| A．To make the street cleaner. |
| B．To help fight climate change |
| C．To remind people of climate warming. |
| A．It sets an official standard for the whitest paint on the earth. |
| B．It turns the light into heat and makes the houses much cooler |
| C．It makes whatever it’s painted on much cooler than its surroundings. |
| A．About 80%. | B．About 90%. | C．About 98.1%. |
| A．The World’s Whitest Paint |
| B．Paint the Earth White |
| C．A Wonderful Invention |
2 . Be a Green Guest
When people take a vacation, they often take vacation from responsibility, too. Our behavior at hotels is one of the biggest problems. We have our linens(纺织品) washed daily for us, and are provided with an endless stream of hot water — what’s not to love about that? But all of this luxury equals serious consequences for the environment. More and more hotels are becoming eco-friendly. They offer programs and facilities that save water and energy. That’s a good start,
•Just say “no” to hotel shampoos
In America alone, there are about 50,000 hotels. Hotel management normally leaves out two small bottles for each hotel room every day.
•Turn off the lights.
•
Sure, it’s a luxury to have sheets and towels cleaned every day, but that’s all it is. Washing a set of bed sheets and a pair of bathroom towels requires about 12-16 gallons of water. See if there is a policy for requesting that your towels and linens get washed weekly.
| A．You do it when you’re at home, right? |
| B．Don’t shower too many times in hotels. |
| C．Don’t have your linens washed every day. |
| D．but they can do more to reduce these energy waste. |
| E．The little plastic bottles may not even get recycled. |
| F．but there is a lot more you can do to cut down the amount. |
| G．In some hotels, it’s as simple as hanging towels back up on a hook. |
3 . Wild beavers (河狸) are back! Experts say that the wild beaver families are doing well. The beavers are even boosting wildlife and the environment!
Over ten years ago, a family of beavers turned up in a part of the river Otter, in Devon. No one knew exactly where they came from. It was a big surprise wild beavers hadn’t lived in England for around 400 years!
In 2015, the government allowed the beavers to stay there as part of a test. They wanted to see if these animals could be reintroduced to the wild. The test ends in February. Some scientists from the University of Exeter already say the beavers help the wildlife in the area. One scientist called it “an amazing story”.
A lot of this is because of dams (水坝). Beavers build dams along the river. This creates deep pools in the riverbed and slows the water down. Scientists say this is perfect for many different types of plants and animals! Many plants are growing near the beavers. Different types of animals are also becoming more and more in the river. Beavers also help make flooding less, scientists say. The beavers’ dams slow down the speed of the river, especially after heavy rain.
Beavers aren’t the only animals that are being reintroduced to the wild! In 2019, red squirrels were brought back to an area of the Scottish Highlands. Further away, the world's rarest (罕见的) duck, the Madagascar pochard, is making a comeback. It was set free into the wild on the African island in 2019 and is doing well.
Who knows what other animals might be making a comeback?
1. The underlined word “boosting”in Paragraph 1 probably means “______”| A．building | B．spreading | C．helping | D．creating |
| A．To reintroduce animals to the wild. |
| B．To introduce the beavers to the wild. |
| C．To build dams for the beavers in the river. |
| D．To grow more different plants along the river. |
| A．They help plants grow. | B．They eat up the plants. |
| C．They do harm to animals. | D．They bring heavy floods. |
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
| A．Worried. | B．Disappointed. | C．Tired. | D．Pleased. |
We require healthy water and air, and so do we require healthy soil. It makes water clean and serves as a growing medium, It provides a living space for billions of organisms. And it also provides us with food. Therefore, we should do something to protect the soil.
One of the easiest ways we can support the soil is by wasting less food. All the food that ends up in our shopping bags requires land, water and energy to produce. By throwing away less, we will prevent materials in soil from being wasted.
By eating different types of foods, we can help create demands for different farming products, which is better for soil. Food diversity can improve soil quality. In general, eating a diverse (多样的) diet is better for our health too.
Read the instructions on garden products.
When we walk through any garden store, there are many products for our gardens. No matter which product we end up selecting, the most important step before using it is to read the instructions, Misuse can cause problems.
If we are looking to fertilize (施肥) our garden，we need to know what materials are already in the soil before adding more. Or, we might just need to add one specific material, and not others. Local university laboratories can help provide information on testing soil. It’s usually a matter of digging up soil from a few areas of the yard and sending it in to the lab!
A. Buy less food.
B. Eat a diverse diet.
C. Perform soil tests.
D. Reduce food waste.
5 . All living things on Earth need water to live. Yet humans are facing serious water problems. According to the United Nations, today over 663 million people live without a safe water supply close to home.
To remind people of the importance of water, the UN first set up World Water Day in 1993. It is on Mar 22 each year. From Mar 22 to 28 is also the China Water Week. The first year’s theme is “Waste water”. It tried to call people to reuse waste water instead of wasting it.
In Australia people make good use of waste water. Most Australians have a grass lawn around their home instead of washing the car in the street. Many of them wash it on the lawn to keep the grass longer so that it covers the ground and reduce evaporation.
Rainwater may seem useless to you. But you can also reuse it. People in Germany collect rainwater to wash their toilets. Most houses in the country that are built in the last few years have rainwater collection devices (设备). Rainwater is collected from the root, and then linked to the toilet. But if you don’t have the device just put a bucket (桶) under your roof when it rains.
Water makes up 71 percent of Earth’s surface. But we can only use a very small part of it. Only about 3 percent of the world’s water is fresh water. It’s in lakes, rivers and underground.
Over 80 percent of the w
aste water in the world goes back into the nature. It has not been cleaned and pollutes the rivers and lakes. Unsafe water makes around 842,000 people die each year.
By 2030, about half of the world’s population could be facing water problem. By 2050, as many as seven billion people across the world could not have enough water supplies. The world’s population might be 9.3 billion by then.
1. The China Water Week in 2017 tries to___________.| A．collect rainwater to wash their toilets |
| B．remind people of the importance of water |
| C．put a bucket under your roof when it rains. |
| D．call people to reuse waste water instead of wasting it. |
| A．sit down | B．cut down | C．put down | D．write down |
| A．To share his rich knowledge about water. |
| B．To warn more people to save water. |
| C．To show how water problems change the world. |
| D．To tell people how to discover safe water supply. |
| A．Water in the world has become less and less. |
| B．Unsafe water makes so many people die. |
| C．Our planet will face serious water problems. |
| D．Learning to save water to protect our planet. |
I never grasped the importance of conserving and protecting nature and wildlife, but five months was all it took to turn my indifference into a passion that has changed the track of my life.
Early last year, I was lost and troubled by an anxiety that crippled (削弱) my ability to do anything, even those I loved. I felt like a storm cloud hung over me. For almost a year I struggled on, constantly staring at this wall that faced me. My pursuit of perfection was the main root of this: I wanted to be the best at whatever I did, which obviously in life is not possible. My perfectionism has always been with me. My time in a small junior school made it easy for me to rise to the top. Upon entering a bigger senior school, though, my pursuit of perfection was far from accessible. Perfectionism in small amounts is brilliant, however in overwhelming doses it can be damaging.
One day, I attended a presentation by wildlife conservationist Grant Brown at my school. His presentation not only awed and inspired me, but also helped emerge an inner desire to make a difference in the world. Luckily, as a member of the Environmental Society, I was invited to join a pre-presentation dinner with him and that smaller setting allowed me to slowly build up my courage to speak one-on-one with him—an idea that had seemed completely impossible. This first contact was where my story began.
First, an application to join the Youth For Our Planet and UK Youth For Nature groups was sent around through my high school. I decided to submit my application, and soon I found myself a part of a growing global team of young people working to protect nature and creating climate solutions. Later, Brown invited me to attend the World Youth Wildlife Conference.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
Five months later, I found myself a group leader in the conference.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Each of these steps continued to grow my confidence.
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1. What probably happened in Fountain Hills during the winter?
| A．It didn’t rain much. | B．All animals died off. | C．Many chemicals were used. |
| A．People got sick easily. |
| B．Black birds were missing. |
| C．The farmland couldn’t produce food. |
| A．They were eaten by birds. |
| B．They were dying off themselves. |
| C．They were killed by the government. |
| A．Tell people the importance of bees. |
| B．Teach farmers how to grow food. |
| C．Bring bees from the town. |
8 . Suppose you find a bright yellow bike on a street corner in the city. You hop on (跨上) it and
You
The
Portland’s
| A．drive away | B．ride away | C．ride back | D．run away |
| A．No one | B．Someone | C．Anyone | D．Everyone |
| A．whether | B．so | C．because | D．though |
| A．have to | B．don’t have to | C．can’t | D．can |
| A．expensive | B．crowded | C．free | D．common |
| A．protect | B．control | C．make | D．bring |
| A．out of | B．into | C．up | D．near |
| A．ended | B．started | C．changed | D．refused |
| A．public | B．private | C．clean | D．dirty |
| A．but | B．as | C．until | D．or |
| A．next | B．last | C．best | D．first |
| A．break | B．make | C．discuss | D．follow |
| A．buy | B．repair | C．produce | D．steal |
| A．citizen | B．street | C．idea | D．school |
| A．looked up | B．made up | C．put up | D．set up |
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用(\)划掉。
修改：在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词;
2.只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
Spring has come with all its beauty! Trees have turned green or flowers can be seeing everywhere. Last Friday, my friends and me went on a spring outing. It was such a great fun! We cycled along the streams and down the paths. It didn’t take us long to get the foot of the mountain, that we left our bikes. Then we begin hiking. As we reached the top of the mountain, we were shocking to see many plastic bottle and food bags here and there. All of us started to collect the rubbish and then took it down the mountain. We felt happily to have done our part for the environment.
10 . According to the World Food Program, one third of the food of the world is lost or wasted. It’s up to some 1.3 billion tons every year, worth about $1 trillion. Moreover, a report in 2021 Sugests that 8 to10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (排放) are associated with wasting food.
“For our parents and the older generations,‘clearing your plate’ is more about saving some food for a rainy day.”Liu Jichen, founder and CEO of Clear Plate, an anti-food wasting program, told us.
The idea for Clear Plate came to Liu after one dinner at a restaurant in late 2017. The customers who finished all the food they’d ordered would be given a card, and then they could exchange their cards for rewards. “Yet it was limited to one restaurant’s actions, so I thought, why not try it on a larger scale (规模)? And how?” Liu wondered. And then he teamed up with some of his friends,founded a startup and developed the Clear Plate applet.
“The Clear Plate team is trying to deal with the issue (问题) of food waste. After a meal, users of WeChat take photos of their clean plates, post these on WeChat, collect points, and then exchange their points for gifts or charity donations,” Liu explained.
Starting in 2018, Clear Plate has now more than 4.3 million users with about 45 million participations in anti-food wasting actions, reducing food waste by 1,700 tons and carbon emissions by 6,600 tons. Liu’s determination represents a small change of the Chinese lifestyle and more people are turning toward a healthier, greener and more low-carbon lifestyle.
1. How much food of the world is wasted every year according to the World Food Program?| A．About 1 billion tons. | B．About 1.3 billion tons. |
| C．About 8 billion tons. | D．About 10 billion tons. |
| A．A plate. | B．A point. | C．A photo. | D．A card. |
| A．In 2016. | B．In 2017. | C．In 2018. | D．In 2021. |
| A．The program Clear Plate. |
| B．The World Food Program. |
| C．The world food wasting. |
| D．An introduction to WeChat. |
