1 . 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. |
| 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. |
| A．Calming. | B．Disturbing. |
| C．Refreshing. | D．Challenging. |
| A．Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety |
| B．Media Interest in Contemporary Art |
| C．Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies |
| D．Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures |
2 . The United Nations Environment Program is calling for urgent action to reduce growing risks from chemicals. Better management of chemicals could save millions of lives and billions of dollars. As estimated, 143,000 chemicals are now produced. Yet the report says only a small number of these chemicals have been studied for their effects on human health and the environment. It says death and disability rates are high from the unsafe use of chemical products.
Sylvie Lemmet, director of the UNEP, says poor management of chemicals has a high economic cost. For example, she says the cost is higher than the amount of overseas development aid, or ODA, for health care in sub-Saharan Africa.
She says, “If you look at the estimated cost of poisoning from pesticide (杀虫剂) in sub-Saharan Africa, only the injury and the loss of working time is estimated to be 6.3 billion US dollars in 2009. This is higher than the total ODA that is going to the health part in the same area.”
The UNEP estimates that chemical sales worldwide will increase by around three percent a year until 2050. Chemical production is moving quickly from developed to developing countries. By 2020, chemical production is expected to increase by 40 percent in Africa and the Middle East and 33 percent in Latin America. One of its biggest concerns is pollution of rivers and lakes by pesticide and fertilizer. Other major concerns are heavy metal pollution from the production of cement (水泥) and textiles (纺织品), and dioxin pollution from mining.
The UN report urges the chemical industry and governments to work together to develop safety policies. It says preventing harm costs less than fixing it.
1. The purpose of Paragraph 3 is mainly to indicate that ______.| A．chemicals have a high production cost |
| B．Africa needs more development aid |
| C．the use of pesticide causes a great loss |
| D．the estimated cost of poisoning from pesticide is incorrect |
| A．Pesticide. | B．Fertilizer. |
| C．Heavy metals. | D．Minerals. |
| A．The mass production of cement and textiles. |
| B．Lack of research funds on chemicals. |
| C．Poor management of chemicals. |
| D．Contradictions between chemical producers and governments. |
| A．The truth in Sylvie Lemmet’s comments |
| B．A UN warning about chemical dangers |
| C．The unpredictable future of chemical industry |
| D．Preventing is much better than fixing |
3 . Eating too much fatty food, exercising too little and smoking can raise your future risk of heart disease. But there is another factor that can cause your heart problems more immediately：the air you breathe.
Previous studies have linked high exposure (暴露) to environmental pollution to an increased risk of heart problems，but two analyses now show that poor air quality can lead to heart attack or stroke (中风) within as little as a few hours after exposure. In one review of the research, scientists found that people exposed to high levels of pollutants (污染物) were up to 5% more likely to suffer a heart attack within days of exposure than those with lower exposure. A separate study of stroke patients showed that even air that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)considers to be of “moderate” (良好) quality and relatively safe for our health can raise the risk of stroke as much as 34% within 12 to 14 hours of exposure.
The authors of both studies stress that these risks are relatively small for healthy people and certainly modest compared with other risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure. However, it is important to be aware of these dangers because everyone is exposed to air pollution regardless of lifestyle choices. So stricter regulation by the EPA of pollutants may not only improve environmental air quality but could also become necessary to protect public health.
1. The text mainly discusses the relationship between ________.| A．heart problems and air quality |
| B．heart problems and exercising |
| C．heart problems and smoking |
| D．heart problems and fatty food |
| A．relatively high | B．extremely low |
| C．relatively low | D．extremely high |
| A．Eating fatty food has immediate effects on your heart. |
| B．The EPA conducted many studies on air quality. |
| C．Moderate air quality is more harmful than smoking. |
| D．Stricter regulations on pollutants should be made. |
| A．inform | B．persuade |
| C．describe | D．entertain |
