1 . Nuclear pollution is a serious global   ___________, brought to the forefront by major accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. These events have demonstrated the significant health and environmental risks _________by nuclear disasters. Not only have they caused immediate health problems, such as radiation sickness and increased cancer rates, but they have also _________lasting environmental damage and genetic changes in affected communities. As a result, nuclear pollution remains a pressing concern for governments, scholars, and individuals worldwide.

When nuclear accidents occur in coastal areas, the _________environment becomes a critical concern due to the crucial role that oceans play in _________the climate, ensuring food security, and supporting the livelihoods of billions of people globally. In recent years, the increasing threats to marine ecosystems from ocean pollution have _________public awareness of the need to protect the marine environment. Studies have shown that human activities pose a _________threat to marine environments, emphasizing the importance of improving environmental management and taking measures to mitigate environmental risks.

Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, efforts to cool the reactors by pumping in seawater resulted in the _________of a significant amount of nuclear waste in the water storage tank at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. _________attempts to manage this waste, the Japanese government’s decision to release nearly 1.26 million tons of nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean over the next 40 years has faced opposition __________neighboring countries, local ____________, and international environmental organizations.

This __________poses serious risks to marine life, fisheries, and human health. Radioactive isotopes present in the wastewater, such as tritium, carbon-14, cobalt-60, and strontium-90, can accumulate in marine organisms and ultimately affect human populations through the food ____________. Therefore, there is an/a ____________need for further research and mitigation measures to __________the widespread impacts of nuclear pollution on the environment and human health.

1.

A．change

B．opportunity

C．concern

D．possibility

2.

A．caused

B．posed

C．created

D．increased

3.

A．resulted in

B．led to

C．brought about

D．caused

4.

A．terrestrial

B．aquatic

C．marine

D．atmospheric

5.

A．balancing

B．regulating

C．considering

D．stabilizing

6.

A．heightened

B．raised

C．decreased

D．lifted

7.

A．minor

B．slight

C．substantial

D．insignificant

8.

A．accumulation

B．storage

C．deposition

D．buildup

9.

A．Therefore

B．Despite

C．However

D．Hence

10.

A．from

B．by

C．of

D．in

11.

A．residents

B．citizens

C．inhabitants

D．dwellers

12.

A．issue

B．measure

C．release

D．disposal

13.

A．web

B．chain

C．network

D．system

14.

A．urgent

B．immediate

C．pressing

D．critical

15.

A．address

B．tackle

C．solve

D．resolve

2 . As newer, more advanced technologies come out, huge amounts of electronics (电子产品) are thrown away, instead of being reused. These goods often end up in landfills, where the chemicals inside them may be a danger to the environment. Electronics can contain harmful materials. If these materials get into the ground or water, the pollution can cause serious problems. Most electronics require metals. These metals must be mined from the Earth. Often the mining process creates serious pollution.

A group known as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum is trying to make people more aware of the problems of e-waste. Recently, the WEEE Forum asked researchers from the United Nations (UN) to study a kind of e-waste that’s often not noticed because people don’t consider the goods to be electronics. The WEEE Forum calls this kind “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste.

The UN study shows that about 1/6 of all e-waste is “unable-to-be-seen”. Though it’s “unable-to-be-seen”, it’s certainly not a small amount. The “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste weighs about 9 billion kilograms. The WEEE Forum says that if this e-waste were put into 40-ton trucks and the trucks were then lined up, the line of trucks would be about 5,630 kilometers long.

The surprising kind leading the “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste group was toys. Worldwide, roughly 7.3 billion electronic toys are thrown away each year. These include goods like car racing sets, electric trains, and musical toys. They also include toys with electronic parts, like dolls that speak or games with electronic timers. In all, toys make up about 35% of “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste. But the problem is far larger than just toys. The report also shows that other everyday goods like home alarms, smoke alarms, power tools, and computer cables (电缆) are also big sources of “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste.

The WEEE Forum is hoping that as more people and governments become aware of e-waste, they will make a much greater effort to make sure electronics get reused.

1. What is paragraph 1 mainly about?

A．The amount of electronics.	B．The development of electronics.
C．The ways of reusing electronics.	D．The pollution of electronics.

2. What causes some e-waste often unnoticed?

A．People’s interest in electronics’ character.

B．People’s impression on electronics’ package.

C．People’s misunderstanding of electronics.

D．People’s struggle to adapt to electronics.

3. How does the author support his viewpoint in paragraph 3?

A．By showing numbers.	B．By providing examples.
C．By making a summary.	D．By making a comparison,

4. Which of the following is the WEEE Forum’s solution to e-waste?

A．Designing advanced electronics.	B．Making electronics get reused.
C．Stopping giving away electronics.	D．Reducing electronics’ production.

3 . The Dutch inventor Boyan Slat spends a lot of time thinking about the ocean.

After five and a half years of hard work, the 23-year-old Slat will watch from dry land as System 001 — a floating barrier nearly 2, 000ft long — snakes (曲折前行) its way out under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific.

If all goes to plan, Slat says, a group of 60 systems could reduce the amount of plastic there by half by 2025. “I hope that this will be a turning point for the plastic pollution problem,” Slat tells TIME in a phone interview. “For sixty years it has only gotten worse and worse. Now hopefully we’re going to make a difference.”

Saving our oceans has been Slat’s single-minded goal ever since he was 16 years old, when a trip to Greece provided more plastic bag sightings than fish. Coming up with the idea for a floating barrier that could collect plastic using the power of ocean currents (洋流) alone, Slat founded his business, The Ocean Cleanup, aged just 18.

The idea caught people’s imagination around the world. In 2015, an early design of System 001 was featured on TIME’s list of the best inventions of 2015. The project has received millions of dollars of funding thanks to fast-changing public opinion on plastic.

Slat sees his mission as a race against time. Plastic gradually breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics which can finally enter the food chain. “So the sooner we get it out, the better,” Slat says.

A big question that remains is what will happen to the plastic once it is brought back to land from The Ocean Cleanup’s systems. It’s possible that lots of the waste returned to land will be recycled into more single-use plastics that might one day return to the oceans again. “Big problems require big solutions,” he says. “If anyone has any better ideas, we’d love to know.”

1. What can Slat’s invention System 001 be used for?

A．Cleaning up ocean plastic.

B．Keeping a beach dry and clean.

C．Transporting passengers by sea.

D．Protecting living things in the Pacific.

2. What can we say about Slat as an inventor?

A．He has a good head for business.

B．He is good at selling his idea to the media.

C．He has a deep sense of social responsibility.

D．He wants to change public opinion on the ocean.

3. How did System 001 turn out?

A．It received great technical support worldwide.

B．It was unacceptable to fishermen.

C．It came into use very soon.

D．It was highly rated.

4. What is the big challenge for Slat?

A．Making his invention available to the public.

B．How to deal with the collected plastic waste.

C．Recycling the waste created by his invention.

D．How to get more funding from the government.

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

World leaders at the 5th meeting of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) agreed that by 2024, they would create and sign a new treaty on plastics. The new treaty would create international laws     1     could help bring plastic waste under control.

Because plastic is useful for so many purposes, it has become a part of nearly all areas of our lives. It’s hard to look anywhere without finding dozens of     2     (object) made of plastic.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) reports that     3     (current) 400 million tons of plastic is produced every year. By 2040, that number is predicted to double. And even though there’s a lot of talk about recycling, only 9% of all the plastic ever     4     ( produce) has been recycled.

Plastic gives off dangerous gases when it’s made and also when it’s burned or buried in the ground. Scientists say plastics are responsible     5     4.5% of the world’s greenhouse gases — the gases that are driving the climate crisis.

Plastic doesn’t “decompose (腐烂)” like natural materials. Instead, it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. And as the plastics     6     (fill) our world break down, they create     7     new problem — microplastics.

Microplastics are so tiny that     8     (they) existence is usually ignored. In the past few years, microplastics     9     (find) almost everywhere, from the North pole to Antarctica, from the top of the Earth’s     10     (high) mountain to the deepest point in the sea. They’ve even appeared in the bodies of animals including humans.

6 . Microplastics have invaded seemingly every part of the planet today, including the Arctic. Scientists have been puzzling over how this flood of pollution makes its way to such distant locations far from the city centers where it’s created. A new study finds a surprising route for the tiny particles (微粒).

Scientists found that Arctic surface waters had the highest microplastics concentrations of all the world’s oceans. “We asked ourselves, where does it come from?” says Melanie Bergmann, a scientist and lead author. The biggest load is carried north by the Gulf Stream.

But could microplastics be catching rides on the wind and landing far to the north as snow? It turns out they are. Snow from ice floes (浮冰) in the Arctic had surprisingly high concentrations of microplastics. One spot, close to the middle of the passage, had 14,000 particles per 34 ounces (盎司). And the average across all samples was 1, 800 particles. For comparison, the researchers also analyzed snow near Germany and the Alps. The microplastics measured there were considerably higher, with an average of 24, 600 particles per 34 ounces. So it seems aerial transport is the pathway to transport microplastics to the Arctic.

The study raises concerns about how much microplastics contaminate the atmosphere, carrying a possible health risk to people and animals that breathe them in. “Microplastic is in the air, and it’s not unlikely that we also breathe some of it in,” says Bergmann.

“People think that plastic pollution is a middle-of-the-ocean problem,” says Jennifer Provencher, who studies the effects of plastics and was not involved with the study. “And the more we work on this, the more we are learning that it’s not a middle-of-the-ocean problem. It’s a water body problem, it’s a ground problem, it’s an air problem, and it’s an Arctic problem,” she says.

“For human health, we now know very little. There is a lot of concern because we know we are exposed. More research is needed to fully understand the health effects,” says researcher Chelsea Rochman. Even worse maybe the threat from airborne nanoplastics — they’re too small to see and about which almost nothing is known. “They may actually enter cells,” says Rochman. “So we may have a big problem.”

1. What is the finding of the study?

A．Microplastics found in the Arctic come from the sky.

B．The least microplastics are found on the Arctic surface.

C．The majority of plastics in the Arctic water come from the air.

D．The highest concentrations of microplastics are in the Gulf Stream.

2. What does the underlined word “contaminate” in Paragraph 4 mean?

A．Shape.

B．Pollute.

C．Control.

D．Rebuild.

3. What can we infer from Provencher’s words?

A．Microplastics cycle faster in the air than in the water.

B．Microplastics are easy to break down underground.

C．Plastic pollution affects the ocean most.

D．Plastics exist everywhere on Earth.

4. What does Rochman say about the science on the health effects of microplastics?

A．It has benefited humans greatly.

B．It has progressed smoothly.

C．It is totally disorganized.

D．It is still developing.

7 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.

At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of Von Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.

In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic,” Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.

Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.

1. What are Von Wong’s artworks intended for?

A．Beautifying the city he lives in.	B．Introducing eco-friendly products.
C．Drawing public attention to plastic waste.	D．Reducing garbage on the beach.

2. Why does the author discuss plastic straws in paragraph 3?

A．To show the difficulty of their recycling.

B．To explain why they are useful.

C．To voice his views on modern art.

D．To find a substitute for them.

3. What effect would “Truckload of Plastic” have on viewers?

A．Calming.	B．Disturbing.
C．Refreshing.	D．Challenging.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety

B．Media Interest in Contemporary Art

C．Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies

D．Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures