1 . One e-toy for every person on Earth — that’s the surprising amount of electric trains, talking dolls, and other children’s devices thrown away every year. People usually consider electronic waste from computers, smartphones, and TVs to be e-waste, but they may not realize that “nontraditional” e-waste materials like power tools, LED lights, USB cables and countless other similar, also need special recycling. In all, people across the world throw out about 9 billion kilograms of e-waste commonly not recognized as such by people.
This “invisible e-waste” is the main focus of the sixth annual International E-Waste Day on October 14, organized by Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum. According to the findings, for example, the total weight of all USB cables thrown away every year equals 6 Eiffel Towers. Meanwhile, if all this invisible electronic waste were packed into trucks, it could fill half a million 40-ton trucks, enough to cause a long traffic jam covering about 3,504 miles.
“People are familiar with common e-waste. But many invisible e-waste are ignored. How to have them recycled remains a big problem.” Pascal Leroy, Director-General of the WEEE Forum, said in a statement. Pascal Leroy asks that instead of throwing them away, people should take it to the local recycling facility. He says that a lot of electronic waste is right around us, and we need to raise awareness about this issue. He also refers to past campaigns that successfully made people more aware of plastic pollution and believes the same can happen with e-waste awareness.
1. Which of the following belongs to the "invisible e-waste"?| A．Smartphones. | B．Computers. | C．Talking toys. | D．USB cables. |
| A．To make the number exaggerated. | B．To show the destination of the wastes. |
| C．To prove it also has the same problems. | D．To give a vivid description of the large amount. |
| A．Hopeful. | B．Unclear. | C．Doubtful. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Recycle or Not? That’s a Problem |
| B．New Electrical Wastes that Go Unnoticed |
| C．The Shocking Amount of Electronic Products |
| D．The Focus of the Sixth International E-waste Day |
More than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries have sounded the alarm on climate change. In a paper
The scientists also gave some instructions to fight against global warming, proposing six actions to prevent
The scientists say the climate crisis is
3 . Information from this year’s IQAir World Air Quality Report showed only seven countries met the World Health Organization’s pollution recommendations in 2023, which were Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius and New Zealand. Of the 134 countries and regions measured, 124 had higher levels than called for in the WHO pollution guidelines.
The report said the five countries with what it called the lowest air quality had particle (颗粒物) levels at least nine times higher than what the WHO recommends. Three South Asian countries — Bangladesh, Pakistan and India — had the world’s lowest air quality. In 2022, India was eighth and Bangladesh was fifth.
The information came from the Swiss company IQAir. The report used measurements from over 30,000 stations across 134 countries. IQAir used the WHO standard of PM 2.5 to measure the size of breathable pollutant particles in the air. The PM2.5 measurement means the particles are 2.5 microns (微米) or less in diameter (直径). The diameter of human hair, for example, is about 30 times larger than a particle of 2.5 microns.
In Bangladesh, the concentration of PM2.5 particles reached 79.9 micrograms per cubic meter in 2023. In Pakistan, the number was 73.7. India’s level was 54.4, Tajikistan in Central Asia was 49 and Burkina Faso in West Africa was the fifth-most polluted nation at 46.6.
Firoz Khan, an air pollution expert at North South University in Dhaka, Bangladesh, said 20 percent of the early deaths in the country were caused by air pollution. He added spending on pollution-related healthcare was equal to four to five percent of the nation’s economy.
Christi Chester Schroeder oversees air quality science for IQair. She said South Asia’s geography and climate conditions influence its air quality. “The pollution has nowhere to go,” she added. “Because of agricultural practices, industry and population density, it really does look like it is going to get worse before it gets better.”
1. What can be inferred from the text?| A．Bangladesh’s air quality may have decreased in 2023. |
| B．India’s air quality was greatly improved in 2022. |
| C．Mauritius had the fifth-worst air quality in the world in 2022. |
| D．Pakistan’s air quality was the third-worst in the world in 2023. |
| A．To demonstrate how to use hair products. |
| B．To offer suggestions to people with hair problems. |
| C．To emphasize the difficulty of measuring pollutant particles. |
| D．To explain the size of breathable pollutant particles in the air. |
| A．Developing agriculture will help improve air quality. |
| B．Geographical conditions have little influence on air quality. |
| C．The future of air quality in South Asia does not look bright. |
| D．South Asian countries should try to increase their populations. |
| A．A report on global air pollution. | B．Plans to fight against air pollution. |
| C．The harm of air pollution to humans. | D．Advice on cutting air pollution. |
4 . The world’s population cast aside 49 million tons of electronic waste, known as e-waste. It has been calculated that this number will grow to more than 60 million tons by 2023.
What is causing the upsurge (激增) in e-waste? Technology is becoming more and more widespread, covering almost every aspect of our lives. Meanwhile, the lifespan of devices is getting shorter—many products will be thrown away once their batteries die, to be replaced by new devices. Companies intentionally plan the obsolescence (过时) of their goods by updating the design or software and discontinuing support for older models, so that now it is usually cheaper and easier to buy a new product than to repair an old one. Since prices are falling, electronic devices are in demand around the world.
As more people buy electronic equipment, manufacturers (制造商) are beginning to face shortages of the raw materials needed to make their products, so recycling and reusing materials from discarded (扔掉的) products and waste makes economic and environmental sense.
Recycling e-waste is practiced both formally and informally. Proper or formal e-waste recycling usually involves taking apart the electronics, sorting through the materials and cleaning them. Companies must obey health and safety rules to reduce the health and environmental hazards of handling e-waste by using pollution-control technologies. All this makes formal recycling expensive. Informal recycling is typically unlicensed and uncontrolled. At informal recycling workshops, men and women recover valuable materials by burning devices to melt away non-valuable materials. Usually they do not wear protective equipment and lack any awareness that they are handling dangerous materials.
With the amount of e-waste growing around the world, recycling alone will not be enough to solve the problem. In order to reduce e-waste, manufacturers need to design electronics that are safer, and more durable (耐用的), repairable and recyclable. The best thing you can do is resist buying a new device until you really need it. Try to get your old product repaired if possible and, if it can’t be fixed, resell or recycle it responsibly. Before you recycle your device, put any broken parts in separate containers and close these tightly to prevent chemicals from leaking. Wear latex (乳胶) gloves and a mask if you’re handling something that’s broken.
1. Which of the following is a reason for e-waste’s sharp increasing?| A．The results of updating devices. | B．The falling of devices’ quality. |
| C．The methods of recycling e-waste. | D．The shortage of protective equipment. |
| A．Increasing the variety of electronic products. |
| B．Lowering the costs of technology innovation. |
| C．Relieving the lack of the raw materials. |
| D．Improving the poor quality of e-devices. |
| A．Influence. | B．Limits. | C．Harm. | D．Costs. |
| A．E-waste could be broken down by burying it underground for a long time. |
| B．Companies should be mainly responsible for reducing e-waste. |
| C．Fixing a device could cause more pollution than buying a new one. |
| D．Everyone should take action to reduce e-waste. |
5 . We talk a lot about air pollution. Here in Hong Kong we always complain about light pollution as well. Then, there is noise pollution. It’s the same in many cities around the world. In Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, people have been complaining about/the noise made by drivers who continually sound their car horns (喇). That is until recently, when something was finally done about it.
‘The Chief District Officer of Kathmandu had received many. complaints about horn pollution. He said that everyone felt the use of the car horn in recent years had become excessive. Researchers in Kathmandu found that for about 80 percent of the time, it really was not necessary for drivers to use their car horns. Sounding the horn to make a noise had become more of a habit. It was no longer being used as it was supposed to be used: to warn people of danger.
At the beginning of the Nepali New Year in 2017, the local government passed a law to ban the use of car horns unless used correctly.
Within six months, 11,000 fines (罚款) had been collected by the local traffic police. The fine was about HK S360. A taxi driver in Kathmandu can make about HK S1,000 per day, so he could lose about one-third of his money it he broke the law.
As usual, there were many complaints from drivers. They said that cows and dogs were free to walk on the roads. They always caused danger. Sounding a car horn was the only way to get them to move out of the way. And although there were quite a few traffic lights in the streets of Kathmandu, very few of them worked. This meant there was often a traffic mess.
The ban on using a car horn went ahead, and within a few weeks the streets of Nepal’s capital were quieter-even though they were still just as busy. Because of the ban, drivers are a little more careful when they drive. Fewer accidents have been reported. The local government says the horn ban will now be copied in other areas of Nepal.
1. What do Hong Kong and Kathmandu have in common?| A．Both have been troubled by factory pollution. |
| B．Both have succeeded in fighting air pollution. |
| C．Both have been faced with the problem of noise pollution. |
| D．Both have received many complaints about horn pollution. |
| A．Car drivers usually use car horns unnecessarily. | B．The cars are becoming more and more. |
| C．Care drivers use car horns as a warning. | D．Everyone complain about the horn pollution. |
| A．In 2016. | B．In 2017. | C．In 2018. | D．In 2019. |
| A．No traffic lights in the streets can work. | B．The traffic on the roads is not very smooth. |
| C．Animals are not allowed to walk on the streets. | D．Drivers are required to drive on one-way streets. |
| A．It is useful. | B．It is worrying. | C．It is interesting. | D．It is embarrassing. |
1. What’s getting less and less these days according to the talk?
| A．Empty land. | B．Garbage. | C．Water. |
| A．Burying it. | B．Sending it out of our planet. | C．Using it as an energy source. |
| A．It is hardly ever done. |
| B．It causes air pollution. |
| C．It is useless for hard materials. |
7 . Plastic is everywhere in our environment, especially in the ocean. Actually, a large amount of plastic waste is floating around the world’s oceans today, waiting to be eaten by some fish or oyster, and finally perhaps by one of us.
Because plastic wasn’t invented until the late 19th century, and its production only really took off around 1950, we have a mere 9.2 billion tons of the stuff to deal with. Of that, more than 6.9 billion tons have become waste. And of that waste, a surprising 6.3 billion tons never made it to a recycling bin. No one knows how much unrecycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean. In 2015, Jenna Jambeck, an engineering professor, caught everyone’s attention with a rough estimate: between 5.3 million and 14 million tons of plastic waste each year just come from coastal regions.
Meanwhile, ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine (海洋的) animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. Some are stuck by abandoned things made of plastic. Many more are probably harmed invisibly. Marine species of all sizes, from zooplankton to whales, now eat microplastics. We are closely related to oceans so the consequences of throwing plastic away may return to affect us some day.
“This isn’t a problem where we don’t know what the solution is,” says Ted Siegler, a Vermont resource economist, “We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to deal with it. We know how to recycle.” It’s a matter of building the necessary systems, he says, ideally before the ocean turns into a thin soup of plastic.
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?| A．To prove plastic was difficult to invent. | B．To tell us what marine animals like eating. |
| C．To call on us to protect marine animals. | D．To introduce the topic of the passage. |
| A．By listing figures. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By analyzing reasons. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．results | B．functions | C．causes | D．aims |
| A．Some people don’t know the solution of plastics waste. |
| B．It’s time to take measures to deal with plastic waste. |
| C．Plastics will turn the ocean into a soup of plastic. |
| D．People should avoid using plastics to protect the ocean. |
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.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. How much rubbish have people created in Britain this year?
| A．416 million tons. | B．404 million tons. | C．400 million tons. |
| A．Britain is the most wasteful country in the world. |
| B．People who live on their own create more rubbish. |
| C．The rubbish problem is not so serious as scientists think. |
| A．People don’t like to use rubbish bags. |
| B．The rubbish always gives out a bad smell. |
| C．People’s incorrect behavior makes recycling difficult. |
| A．To criticize rich families for producing so much rubbish. |
| B．To call on people to find ways to deal with the rubbish problem. |
| C．To explain why people pay little attention to the rubbish problem. |
10 . After a week of talks in Canada, negotiators (谈判者) from 170 countries have a “clear path to landing an ambitious deal” on plastic pollution at a final round of negotiations in South Korea in November, Inger Andersen, executive director of the U. N. Environment Programme, said in a statement.
“The work, however, is far from over,” she added. “Some countries continue to block a crucial measure: a global limit on the production of new plastic, which is essential to control pollution.”
Plastic is made from fossil fuels, and major oil and natural gas producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia have been widely criticized for throwing up roadblocks in the negotiations in order to protect future profits. However, scientists and environmentalists say the United States also bears a lot of blame. The country is the top producer of oil and gas globally, and it has the world’s biggest economy, which has historically given the U. S. huge power in environmental negotiations.
Critics say American negotiators haven’t been willing to push for a global cap (限额) on plastic production, and are instead throwing their weight behind measures like recycling that are favored by the country’s fossil fuel and petrochemical industries.
Erin Simon, head of plastic waste and business at the World Wildlife Fund who attended the talks in Canada, says the U. S. and a lot of other countries are brainstorming and trying to come up with creative solutions to meet everybody’s needs as best as possible.
The State Department has said that for an agreement to be effective, it needs to be supported by every country, including nations that are major producers of fossil fuels and plastics. More than 50 countries now say they want an agreement to include targets for reducing plastic production.
“The drumbeat to reduce plastic production is growing from countries worldwide,” Ana Rocha, the director of global plastics policy in Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said in a statement. “More and more leaders are waking up to what the science and our lived experiences tell us: plastic is pollution, and we need to stop it where it starts.”
1. What is the key to controlling plastic pollution according to Inger Andersen?| A．Limiting the use of second-hand plastic. |
| B．Raising people’s environmental awareness. |
| C．Reducing the worldwide production of plastic. |
| D．Passing laws to regulate the disposal of waste plastic. |
| A．Stopping producing plastic. | B．Sharing quality plastic. |
| C．Forbidding using plastic. | D．Recycling used plastic. |
| A．All countries’ support. | B．The shared laws. |
| C．Everyone’s permission. | D．Creative solutions. |
| A．Plastic production is reducing all the time. |
| B．The plastic pollution should be handled technically. |
| C．People’s awareness of reducing plastic pollution is increasing. |
| D．More leaders realize lived experiences can help handle plastic pollution. |
