A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of teaching a young couple to dive (潜水) in Thailand on one of my favorite reefs (礁). The weather conditions were perfect, with mild currents and excellent sight of the beautiful ocean and the bright, vivid corals. Even with their masks on, I could see the smiles on my students’ faces.
The dive couldn’t have gone better. However, things changed as we made our way back to the boat. As we swam back along the reef, I noticed the current (水流) changing. As it did, huge quantities of trash and plastic began to flood the area. I saw small reef fish swimming amongst the straws, plastic bags and other bits of rubbish. I noticed that some of the fish were pecking away (啄) at the plastic. By the time we got back onboard the boat, there were bits of plastic floating all around us. It looked more like a trash site than the ocean.
When I got home, the first thing I did was to go online and research plastic pollution in the ocean. I was surprised to find out that over the past decade, divers and beach lovers have seen a lot of changes in the oceans. Even very remote locations were suddenly filled with plastic and other chemicals. Plastics were entering our oceans at an alarming rate—up to 12 million tons each year. This huge amount of plastic was wreaking havoc (破坏) not only on the environment, but also on the marine animals that lived in the ocean, such as sea turtles and sea birds. Some of them were sadly mistaking the pieces of plastic for food. Pollution has brought our oceans to the point of disaster, and unless we make a great change, then our oceans and all of its living things, will be at risk.
Since that unforgettable plastic-polluted dive, I have become an ocean supporter and spend my days trying to get the message out there about just how harmful ocean pollution is, not only to marine life, but also to mankind.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Then the idea came to me: I could appeal to my fellow divers to take action.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I decided to take it a step further to try and stop those companies producing single-use plastics.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2 . Plastic is everywhere, from the Arctic ice to vital organs in the human body. In fact, previous estimates suggest that the average person swallows a credit card-worth of microscopic plastic particles(颗粒) every week. But new research shows that this could actually be an understatement.
Microplastics are plastics smaller than 5 millimeters, found in industrial waste, beauty products, and formed during the degradation of larger plastic pieces. Over time, they break down into even smaller nanoplastics. These tiny particles can pass through our intestines and lungs into our bloodstreams, reaching vital organs like the heart and brain.
While the idea of eating plastic is unsettling in itself, the major concern here is that these plastic particles contain chemicals that can interrupt our body’s natural release of hormones, potentially increasing our risk of reproductive disorders and certain cancers. They can also carry toxins(毒素) on their surface like heavy metals.
In the past, researchers have shown bottled water can contain tens of thousands of identifiable plastic fragments in a single container. However, until recently, only the larger microplastics were detectable with available measuring tools, leaving the area of nanoplastics largely a mystery.
Using Raman microscopy (显微镜学), capable of detecting particles down to the size of a flu virus, the team measured an average of 240, 000 particles of plastic per liter of bottled water, 90 percent of which were nanoplastics, a revelation 10 to 100 times larger than previous estimates.
These plastics likely originate from the bottle material, filters used to “purify” the water, and the source water itself. “It is not totally unexpected to find so much of this stuff, ” the study’s lead author, Columbia graduate student Naixin Qian, said in a statement. His team hopes to expand their research into tap water and other water sources to better inform our exposure to these potentially dangerous particles. “The idea is that the smaller things get, the more of them I reveal, ” he added.
1. What is the primary focus of the new research?| A．The presence of plastic particles. | B．The use of plastic in everyday products. |
| C．The detection methods for microplastics. | D．The potential risks of nanoplastics to human. |
| A．Finding the source of plastic particles. | B．Helping to cure the deadly flu virus. |
| C．Detecting the smaller plastic particles. | D．Improving the quality of bottled water. |
| A．To focus on areas with higher plastic pollution. |
| B．To be aware of the dangerous particles in daily life. |
| C．To further measure the types of particles in tap water. |
| D．To detect the smaller plastic particles in industrial areas. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Objective. | C．Conservative. | D．Positive. |
3 . Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest is pollution. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.
Men have been polluting the earth. Many years ago, the pollution was not so serious because there were not so many people. When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place, men moved to another place.
Air pollution is now the most serious. Air makes people sick. And lots of people now are trying to use something to clear the air. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us become angry more easily.
Many countries are making rules to fight air pollution. They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories in the city, and from putting dirty smoke into the air.
Pollution by SO2 is now the most dangerous kind of air pollution. It is caused by heavy traffic. It is true that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.
Although most of the pollution is caused by us, we are the ones who can change the situation. The earth is our home. We must take care of it. And we must pay more attention to the information in pollution at the same time.
1. Why was the pollution in the past less serious?| A．Because life in the past was easier. | B．Because there were not so many people. |
| C．Because men stayed in one place. | D．Because people used less coal to make fire. |
| A．Air pollution. | B．Noise pollution. |
| C．Light pollution. | D．Water pollution. |
| A．Try to use something to clear the air. | B．Ask people to use public transport more. |
| C．Stop putting dirty smoke into the air. | D．Encourage people to move to another place. |
| A．To prove life is much easier today. | B．To call on us to take care of our earth. |
| C．To show the danger of pollution. | D．To introduce how to fight air pollution. |
4 . As we all know, waste is extremely bad for the environment. Let’s talk about why litter is harmful to our streets and towns, our drinking water, and sea animals.
Waste can have a bad influence on our cities. Cleaning up litter costs US taxpayers (纳税人) and businesses $11.5 billion each year.
As you can see, waste is harmful in many ways.
| A．Everybody wants to breathe fresh air. |
| B．That money could have been spent on parks. |
| C．How do you feel when you see people littering around? |
| D．In the future there might be more waste than fish in the ocean. |
| E．Litter can go into the soil and water and pollute our drinking water. |
| F．We need to stop littering for us, for the environment, and for the planet. |
| G．Did you know every day almost 8 million pieces of litter go into the ocean? |
Nowadays, our living conditions are becoming increasingly serious owing to the destruction of our environment. Many plants and
It is obvious that there are many reasons
Personally, I hold the view that effective measures must be taken
Most of the efforts aimed at reducing climate change center on
The study found that if the world food system stays on
Researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Oxford in Britain led the study,
A main goal of the 2015 United Nations Paris Agreement
7 . Ever wonder how this season’s celebrations affect the environment? Guest blogger Krista Fairles takes an amusing look at this very topic.
The holidays are a wonderful, cheerful time when most people wait for Santa to bring them presents. But I’m not like most people. I spend my time wondering just what the environmental impacts of Santa Claus and his reindeer are, and more importantly, how I can calculate those impacts.
Lately I’ve been particularly curious as to whether Santa’s old sled is a clean green flying machine, or if he should be replacing his 8 reindeer with an environmentally-friendly car.
I should mention that, surprisingly, I was unable to find statistics specific to Santa’s magical flying reindeer, so these calculations use numbers from various sources and may not represent actual pollution caused by Santa and his animals. In other words, don’t complain to the govenment about the damage Santa is causing the environment based on this article.
Santa’s yearly trip around the globe is 44,000km long, twice the average of a North American driver. If we assume that the magic provides the altitude for this trip, then reindeer power only needs to push Santa’s sled forward. To complete the trip in 12 hours, I estimate they must travel at a speed of about 3100 km/h. To travel at this speed, for this length of time, the reindeer need to eat an incredible 980 million calories each!
So the next question is: how much food is in 980 million calories? Well, if they’re eating corn, they’d need to eat 16, 500 lbs each-or 1.6 acres of food. Growing 12.8 acres of corn has its own implications for the environment that we’ll leave for another calculation.
We now need to consider that during the global trip the reindeer are “letting out” some of that corn in the form of methane. A resting cow produces 110 kg of methane per year, so flying reindeer would each let out about 4.8 tons. With methane causing 20 times the global warming damage of CO2, and the altitude increasing that damage by 1000% that another 20 times, we can put Santa’s round-trip emissions at 15,488 tons. This is much more than the 100 tons an environmentally-friendly car would release on the same trip!
Bad Santa.
1. According to Paragraph 6, how many acres of corn would Santa need to feed 10 reindeer?| A．1.6. | B．16. | C．12.8. | D．128. |
| A．Christmas celebrations are really a waste of money. |
| B．Vegetarians are more likely to survive than meat-eaters. |
| C．Raising animals has a negative influence on environment. |
| D．The car industry does less harm to environment than farming. |
| A．Serious and boring. | B．Cheerful and friendly. |
| C．Academic and formal. | D．Humorous and concerned. |
| A．Is Santa driving clean and green? |
| B．Santa, watch where you’re going! |
| C．Santa Claus is coming to town! |
| D．Let’s reduce waste on Christmas celebrations! |
8 . Recycling is a great way of doing your bit for the environment and helping to protect the earth’s precious resources. However, a new study has revealed that our desire to be sustainable maybe doing more harm than good. According to waste company Biffa, this is because of “wish-cycling” — assuming that items such as disposable coffee cup sand pizza boxes will be recycled if put in the recycling bin. In fact, pollution from those items or other non-recyclables can result in recyclable items that have been put in the correct bin going to landfill. David Heaton, a business director at Biffa, said: “Pollution happens when items are disposed of in the wrong bins or haven’t been cleaned before being recycled.”
Experts at Biffa analyzed the amounts of non-target and non-recyclable materials that entered UK material recycling facilities between 2016 and 2020. It was found that, in 2016, the average pollution rate of recycling waste was 13.4 percent, rising over four years to 17 percent by the end of 2020. This shows that, even as people are becoming more eco-conscious, wish-cycling is increasing both in households and businesses.
The Biffa experts say that one of the best ways to prevent pollution of recycling is to clean recyclable waste before putting it in the bin. They suggest cutting off the top of old pizza boxes and only recycling that part to avoid pollution from the grease (油脂). Check the on-packaging recycling label to check it can actually be recycled When it comes to plastics, Biffa recommends checking the resin code, the number in the plastic triangle, to know whether it should go in the recycling bin. In general, resin codes 1, 2, 4 and 5 are recyclable, while 3, 6 and 7 are not. Larger items, like electronics, furniture and batteries, can also be recycled but often can not go in household recycling bins as they need specialist separating. These will need to be taken to recycling centers or sustainable waste management companies.
“It’s vital as a nation that we get better at effective ‘pre-cycling’— sorting waste correctly before collection to reduce pollution rates,” added Mr. Heaton.
1. What’s the truth of “wish-cycling” according to the first paragraph?| A．The desire to lead a sustainable life. |
| B．The good intention to help recycling. |
| C．The habit of throwing items that end up in landfills. |
| D．The practice of recycling items that can not be recycled. |
| A．People are becoming more eco-conscious. |
| B．Wish-cycling is on the rise in recent years. |
| C．Pollution happens less frequently in recycling facilities. |
| D．People are used to cleaning recyclable waste before putting it in the bin. |
| A．Dispose of electronics together with household waste. |
| B．Skip the step of checking the on-packaging recycling label. |
| C．Check the resin code of plastics to see whether it is recyclable or not. |
| D．Cutoff the top of old pizza box and throw the rest to the recycling bin. |
| A．Recycling: a Big Project | B．Wish-cycling: a New Trend |
| C．Wish-cycling: a Growing Concern | D．Pre-cycling: an Effective Method |
9 . One summer midnight, standing outside a wooden house in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I looked up. The sight of thousands of stars was almost enough to make me, a non-believer, offer a word of gratitude up into the star-filled sky. But to whom? Perhaps to Johan Eklof, author of The Darkness Manifesto.
A bat scientist, Eklof works in the night shadows in western Sweden. His work requires an absolute kind of darkness unpolluted by light. But this category of darkness is threatened. In the 1980s, Eklof tells readers, two-thirds of the churches in Sweden housed bat caves. Not any longer. “Today, this number has been reduced by a third due to light pollution, because the churches all glow brightly in the night.” he writes.
We have all noticed it when driving through any city at night. Empty places are floodlit. The night sky in Hong Kong is 1200 times brighter than an unlit one. Citizens of some large cities, writes Eklof, have never allowed their eyes to adapt to true night vision. But we are only now beginning to understand the effects.
Too much light is incredibly destructive to the complex eco-systems many animals inhabit. It scares away the bats that Eklof studies; reef fish eggs go unhatched; birds forget to even sing.
So how can we deal with the too much light? In 2019, France passed laws limiting how much light can be sent into the sky. In Vienna, Austria, the city’s lights are turned off at 11 p.m. Some measures, like artificial lights that do not reflect light upward, are already within our grasp. “We could just turn it all off, but I guess we don’t want to, because darkness is not safe for everyone.” said Eklof in a recent interview. “So it’s vital we find a middle way.”
Right now, it’s hard to know what that middle way might look like. In 50 years, every city could be lit by environmentally low-impact lights, or we might have completely forgotten what darkness is — the sky filled with little moons.
1. What do we know about Eklofs work?| A．It reduces light pollution. | B．It focuses on stars and sky. |
| C．It strengthens people’s belief. | D．It requires a specific condition. |
| A．Darkness. | B．An unlit city. |
| C．Floodlighting. | D．The night sky. |
| A．Cause and damage. | B．Effect and solution. |
| C．Consequence and disadvantage. | D．Analysis and potential. |
| A．Balanced. | B．Negative. | C．Unclear. | D．Conservative. |
10 . Most stars are invisible against the overhead glare from city lights. At best, there is only a bit of the Milky Way to see: the combined radiance of a hundred billion stars dims (暗淡) to near-nothingness by bright streetlamps and storefronts.
This is light pollution-human-generated light cast up into the heavens-causing the sky itself to glow and washing out the stars. Astronomers have known for years the situation is bad for observing stars, but it also has real and negative effects on the well-being of many living things-plants, animals and even human beings. More than 80 percent of humanity is affected by light pollution, their view of the skies being stolen away.
All this extra light at night has a large effect on the life under it. Researchers have shown that it has negative impacts on many animals and plants; light pollution disturbs the great migrations of birds, the delicate blossoming of flowers, and even the courtship (求偶) of fireflies, etc. It affects humans as well, possibly causing insomnia (失眠) among many other health problems.
So what can we do about our brightening skies? There is a lot already happening. Groups like the International Dark Sky Association, or IDA, advocate not for more lighting but for more intelligent lighting; smarter street lights that concentrate their light downward is one example. Because these lights offer more efficient light, they save energy, too, eventually paying for themselves. The IDA offers advice on how to contact local authorities to fix better equipment and create ordinances to lower pollution. Many cities in the United States and other countries are certified Dark Sky Communities (DSC), ones that have shown “exceptional devotion to the preservation of the night sky” by discouraging wasteful lighting practices.
Many people don’t even know that they-and their children-are losing this cosmic (宇宙的) experience just over their heads. We need the dark night sky, and it’s up to all of us to make sure it’s still there every time the sun goes down.
1. How does the author organise Paragraph 3?| A．By listing figures. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By following the order of time. | D．By analyzing cause and effect. |
| A．Surveys. | B．Jobs. | C．Wonders. | D．Regulations. |
| A．The importance of the dark night sky. |
| B．The urgency of having cosmic experience. |
| C．The necessity of solving the problem of light pollution. |
| D．Our children’s responsibility to fight light pollution. |
| A．Light Pollution Is Dimming Our View of the Sky |
| B．IDA Is Advocating Much Smarter Street Lights |
| C．DSC Has Shown Devotion to Preserving the Night Sky |
| D．The Applications of Intelligent Lighting Are Worldwide |
