1 . Nuclear pollution is a serious global
When nuclear accidents occur in coastal areas, the
Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, efforts to cool the reactors by pumping in seawater resulted in the
This
| A．change | B．opportunity | C．concern | D．possibility |
| A．caused | B．posed | C．created | D．increased |
| A．resulted in | B．led to | C．brought about | D．caused |
| A．terrestrial | B．aquatic | C．marine | D．atmospheric |
| A．balancing | B．regulating | C．considering | D．stabilizing |
| A．heightened | B．raised | C．decreased | D．lifted |
| A．minor | B．slight | C．substantial | D．insignificant |
| A．accumulation | B．storage | C．deposition | D．buildup |
| A．Therefore | B．Despite | C．However | D．Hence |
| A．from | B．by | C．of | D．in |
| A．residents | B．citizens | C．inhabitants | D．dwellers |
| A．issue | B．measure | C．release | D．disposal |
| A．web | B．chain | C．network | D．system |
| A．urgent | B．immediate | C．pressing | D．critical |
| A．address | B．tackle | C．solve | D．resolve |
2 . Sleeping in a noisy room isn’t only distracting (使人分心的), and it can also harm your health. Although researchers have known for decades that longterm loud noises can harm us, it’s only recently become recognized as a widespread problem.
In a new review of previously published studies, researchers from Germany and Denmark took a look at the ways in which noises, such as an airplane passing by or jackhammer digging in the ground, can affect our hearts. Perhaps the most obvious impact of a loud sound while you are sleeping is that it can wake you up. But, even if you don't remember hearing the noise or you don’t physically get out of bed, it can disrupt you in ways you may not realize.
“Noise is not just causing annoyance, but it actually makes us sick,” said Dr. Thomas Münzel, a professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. “Regardless of where the sound is coming from, if it gets louder than 60 decibels (分贝),it can increase the risk of heart disease.”
When our body hears these noises, it reacts with a stress reaction. In this case, these sudden and unexpected noises cause hormones(荷尔蒙) to speed up and eventually damage the heart. Although the chance that a single noise will affect you is unlikely, it’s the continuous exposure (接触) to the sound that can finally affect you.
“But our heart health isn’t the only cause for concern. Long-term noise may also raise the risk of type 2 diabetes (糖尿病), depression, and anxiety disorders,” he warns. In the future, Münzel plans to examine how noises from cars, planes, and other vehicles affect the brain. But despite the amount or the depth of research he conducts, it’ll take the help of politicians to improve the effect of noise on our health.
“Politicians have to take into account, in particular, the new findings,” Münzel said, “As for aircraft noise and airports, it is important to make new laws and set new lower noise limits that protect people living close by the airport instead of the owners of the airport.”
1. What do researchers from Germany and Denmark find?| A．Noise does little harm to people who are asleep. |
| B．Noise can cause people’s memory to get worse sharply. |
| C．Noise has been a widespread concern for a long time. |
| D．Noise louder than 60 decibels may cause heart disease. |
| A．Defeat. | B．Harm. | C．Attract. | D．Discourage. |
| A．Politicians should take action to handle noise pollution. |
| B．Münzel will continue other studies on brain diseases. |
| C．Benefits of airport owners are more important than health. |
| D．Attention should be paid to heart health and other diseases. |
| A．Who Is to Blame for Noise Pollution | B．What Should Be Done to Stop Noise |
| C．How Münzel Carried Out His Research | D．How Noise Pollution Harms Our Body |
3 . The world’s largest garbage dump doesn’t sit on some barren field outside urban centre. It resides thousands of miles from any land—in the Pacific Ocean.
The dump, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, stretches for hundreds of miles across the North Pacific Ocean.
But how did so much garbage get there?
| A．Plastic makes up 90 percent of all trash floating in the world’s oceans. |
| B．The environmental risks caused by the patch are serious. |
| C．The patch contains about 3. 5 million tons of garbage. |
| D．The patches are connected by a thin 6,000-mile-long current called the Subtropical Convergence Zone. |
| E．Roughly the size of Texas, the patch is sometimes referred to as the “eighth continents”. |
| F．The garbage patch formed and continues to exist because of ocean currents. |
4 . Human beings have somehow managed to engineer the night to receive us by filling it with light. This kind of control is no different from the feat ( 壮 举 ) of damming a river. Its benefits come with
For most human history, the phrase “light pollution” would have
We’ve lit up the night as if it were a(n)
It was once thought that light pollution only affected astronomers, who need to see the night sky in all its glorious clarity. Unlike astronomers, most of us may not need a
In a very real sense, light pollution causes us to
| A．consequences | B．achievements | C．agreements | D．circumstances |
| A．Randomly-designed | B．Well-designed | C．Poorly-designed | D．Economically-designed |
| A．appealed | B．adapted | C．objected | D．amounted |
| A．come under criticism | B．made no difference | C．come into effect | D．made no sense |
| A．making do with | B．fed up with | C．identifying with | D．overflowing with |
| A．visit | B．greet | C．feel | D．smell |
| A．independent | B．disconnected | C．unoccupied | D．excluded |
| A．exposed | B．captured | C．dismissed | D．frustrated |
| A．clear | B．comprehensive | C．traditional | D．critical |
| A．Subsequently | B．However | C．Therefore | D．Similarly |
| A．Reviewing | B．Embracing | C．Denying | D．Regulating |
| A．light | B．rhythm | C．status | D．dawn |
| A．emerging from | B．withdrawing from | C．messing with | D．coinciding with |
| A．keep track of | B．lose sight of | C．catch hold of | D．let go of |
| A．measured | B．neutralized | C．undergone | D．supervised |
5 . Natural selection is the process by which one type of animal within a species grows or develops well because of certain features that make it more likely(可能的) to live than others in its group. The history of the peppered moth (灰蛾) is an example of the natural selection process.
In nineteenth-century England, certain types of peppered moths were able to better blend (融合) into their surroundings. During that time period, great changes were happening in Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was part of this change, and with it came air pollution. Natural selection often takes hundreds or even thousands of years to happen. For the peppered moth, this process happened comparatively(相对地) quickly.
At the beginning of the Industrial Age, most peppered moths in England were light-colored and covered with black markings, although a few moths had dark-colored wings. Because the light-colored moths blended into the light-colored bark on the trees, they could not be easily seen by birds that would eat them. As the air grew more polluted, however, tree trunks became covered with soot (煤烟) and became darker. The light-colored moths became easy for birds to see against the dark tree trunks. Since the dark-colored moths now had the advantage, their numbers grew. Within 50 years, the peppered moth went from being mostly light-colored to being mostly dark-colored.
In the twentieth century, the air cleared up, and the peppered moth population changed again. As tree trunks lightened because of less soot in the air, light-colored moths once again had an advantage. Their numbers increased as soot levels dropped. Depending on their environment, the coloration of the moths helped them to be “naturally selected” to survive(生存).
1. What do we know about the peppered moth’s natural selection process?| A．It was a good example of environmental protection. |
| B．The soot levels in England did not affect it. |
| C．This type of color change was typical for moths. |
| D．The length of time was unusual. |
| A．Both kinds of moths preferred the dark-colored trees. |
| B．Birds failed to see light-colored moths. |
| C．There were more light-colored moths than dark-colored moths in the beginning. |
| D．The color of moths was unimportant. |
| A．Birds would eat fewer moths. |
| B．Light-colored moths would disturb people’s life. |
| C．Moths would not be able to stay alive. |
| D．The population of dark-colored moths would increase. |
| A．the surrounding environment may affect some peppered moths’ survival |
| B．birds preferred to eat dark-colored moths than to light-colored ones |
| C．different types of peppered moths liked different kinds of tree trunk |
| D．birds were dangerously affected by the soot levels |
6 . Natural selection is the process by which one type of animal within a species thrives (兴旺) because of certain characteristics that make it more likely to live than others in its group. The history of the peppered moth (灰蛾) is an example of the natural selection process.
In nineteenth-century England, certain types of peppered moths were able to better blend (融合) into their surroundings. During that time period, great changes were happening in Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was part of this change, and with it came air pollution. Natural selection often takes hundreds or even thousands of years to occur. For the peppered moth, this process occurred comparatively quickly.
At the beginning of the Industrial Age, most peppered moths in England were light-colored and covered with black markings, although a few moths had dark-colored wings. Because the light-colored moths blended into the light-colored bark on the trees, they could not be easily seen by birds that would eat them. As the air grew more polluted, however, tree trunks became covered with soot (煤烟) and became darker. The light-colored moths became easy for birds to see against the dark tree trunks. Since the dark-colored moths now had the advantage, their numbers grew. Within 50 years, the peppered moth went from being mostly light-colored to being mostly dark-colored.
In the twentieth century, the air cleared up, and the peppered moth population changed again. As tree trunks lightened due to less soot in the air, light-colored moths once again had an advantage. Their numbers increased as soot levels declined. Depending on their environment, the coloration of the moths helped them to be “naturally selected” to survive.
1. What do we know about the peppered moth’s natural selection process?| A．It was a good example of environmental protection. |
| B．The soot levels in England did not affect it. |
| C．This type of color change was typical for moths. |
| D．The length of time was unusual. |
| A．Both kinds of moths preferred the dark-colored trees. |
| B．Birds failed to see light-colored moths. |
| C．There were more light-colored moths than dark-colored moths originally. |
| D．The color of moths was unimportant. |
| A．Birds would eat fewer moths. |
| B．The population of dark-colored moths would increase. |
| C．Moths would not be able to stay alive. |
| D．Light-colored moths would disturb people’s life. |
| A．there were always many peppered moths |
| B．birds preferred to eat dark-colored moths |
| C．trees changed colors to adapt to the environment |
| D．birds were dangerously affected by the soot levels |
7 . Flower scents (香味) help pollinators (传粉者) locate their favorite plants. Scientists have established that air pollutants change those scents, throwing off the tracking abilities of such beneficial insects as honeybees. But new lab experiments are the first to confirm that one pollinator, the tobacco hawkmoth, can quickly learn that a pollution-changed scent comes from the jasmine tobacco flower that the insect likes.
Chemical ecologist Markus Knaden and colleagues focused on one pollutant-ozone, the main element in smog. In the lab, his team blew an ozone-changed scent from a tiny tube into a tunnel, with a moth (飞蛾) awaiting at the far end of the tunnel. Usually, when the moth smells the unchanged scent, it flies upwind and uses its long, skinny mouthparts to probe the tube the way that it would a flower. The researchers expected that the changed scent might throw the moth off a little. But the insect wasn’t attracted at all.
In addition to scent, tobacco hawkmoths track flowers visually, so Knaden’s team used the feature, along with a sweet snack, to train the moth to be attracted to a pollution-changed scent. The researchers wrapped a brightly-colored artificial flower around the tube to trick the moth back across the tunnel, despite the unfamiliar scent. And the team added sugar water to the artificial flower. After a moth was given four minutes to taste the sweet stuff, it was attracted to the new smell when sent into the tunnel 15 minutes later, even when neither the sugar water nor the visual signal of the artificial flower was present.
This study focused on only one moth species, but Knaden’s team is now working on planning experiments with other pollinators that are easier to follow than tobacco hawknoths. While he guesses honeybees might also be as adaptable as the moth was, that won’t be true of every pollinator. “The situation can become very bad for insects that are not as clever or cannot see that well. I don’t want the take-home message to be that pollution is not a problem.”
1. What does the underlined word “probe” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Surround. | B．Favour. | C．Access. | D．Examine. |
| A．not all moths were attracted to ozone-changed scent as expected |
| B．the current research conducted by Knaden is pioneering and wide-ranging |
| C．not all pollinators are adaptable to human-driven changes to their environment |
| D．the moth didn’t like the new smell without sugar water and artificial flower |
| A．Positive. | B．Cautious. | C．Unclear. | D．Critical. |
| A．A moth can be rid of the tracking ability to locate its favourite plants. |
| B．A moth is able to establish a relationship between pollution and scents. |
| C．A moth may outsmart smog by learning to like pollution-changed scent. |
| D．A moth is born with an ability to adapt to the changes in the environment. |
8 . Last week came solid evidence that living in toxic Britain can seriously harm your health. Cardiologists at Queen Mary University of London found that even "safe" levels of air pollution are linked to heart abnormalities similar to those seen during the early stages of heart failure. Their study of almost 4,000 people was backed up by a major US study which showed that higher exposure to fine particles and nitrogen oxides is linked to an acceleration in the hardening of the arteries (动脉).
We have long known that air pollution leads to coughing, shortness of breath and irritation in the eyes, nose and throat. It is also clearly linked to respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, as well as diabetes and some cancers. It is now beyond doubt that children's health is greatly affected, and links have been made between it and Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia and congenital birth defects.
The statistics are alarming. In the UK, more than 2 million people suffer from cardiovascular (心血管的) diseases, and nearly one in seven men and one in 12 women will go on to die from them. Heart disease costs the UK economy nearly £30 bn a year to treat, as much as the state spends on secondary education. It is one of the greatest single drains on the public purse. Britain, however, rejects common sense, and shows little sign that it wants to seriously address pollution any time soon.
Despite the mounting evidence of air pollution's costs and health impact, Britain has had to be dragged screaming through the courts to make it comply with minimal clean air guidelines and laws. Successive governments have continually tried to evade their legal responsibilities, spending millions of pounds fighting in the courts and lobbying the EU to be allowed to continue to pollute.
The government now has a new draft clean air strategy our for consultation until 14 August and claims to be acting faster to tackle air pollution than almost every other major developed economy. It pledges to halve the number of people living in places that do not meet World Health Organization pollution guidelines, and it propose to end the sale of new diesel and petrol cars and vans by 2040.
But intending to cut the air pollution bill by around 12.5% in 12 years and waiting 20 years to be rid of the worst vehicles seems criminally weak. Meanwhile, government is knowingly forging ahead with infrastructure plans that will inevitably increase air pollution. The effect will inevitably be to massively increase air pollution and health costs for millions of Britons.
So could the car-clogged streets of Sunder-land, Birmingham and London, where I lived for many years, have contributed to my disease and those of millions of others? Probably. Could the oil companies be responsible for far more than climate change? Certainly. Could Britain's monstrous and mounting bill for heart disease be partly due to the highly polluting diesel cars that governments so scandalously encouraged us to drive? Quite possibly.
What is certain is that air pollution is now an international scandal, and the cause of a health emergency that governments and industry have failed to address. It undoubtedly threatens life more than any war or disaster. When there are clear alternatives to burning fossil fuels then politicians who do not act to prevent it must stand accused not just of failing to act, but of condoning the mass poisoning of their people.
1. According to the study, ________ is probably unrelated to air pollution.| A．diabetes | B．stomachaches | C．Alzheimer | D．artery hardening |
| A．British government has been screaming for help in court |
| B．EU has dissuaded British government for help in court |
| C．British government has tried to have EU's permission for more pollution |
| D．The government firmly refused to act in accordance with the clean air guideline. |
| A．Britain will implement it faster than other major developed economies. |
| B．It presents a practical way to end pollution from vehicles. |
| C．Its goal will be achieved at the price of massive health cost. |
| D．It's aiming too low when more pollution is expected. |
| A．Government officials should feel disgraced for non-action as leaders. |
| B．The government should cover the bills for air pollution and related diseases. |
| C．Oil companies should not be held accountable for the international scandal. |
| D．British government is an irresponsible one for encouraging people to use vehicles. |
9 . COVID-19 lockdowns had strange effects on air pollution across the globe
Ever since the covid-19 spread, many changes have come with the
Researchers found it a strange but
During the lockdown, passenger traffic plumbed, and traffic-related emissions—particularly CO2 and NO2—
| A．seemingly | B．absolutely | C．relatively | D．theoretically |
| A．criticized | B．issued | C．imposed | D．publicized |
| A．suffered | B．witnessed | C．reformed | D．respected |
| A．worth | B．busy | C．demand | D．symbolic |
| A．rare | B．precious | C．applicable | D．respective |
| A．halved | B．growing | C．increasing | D．double |
| A．meaningful | B．honorable | C．tough | D．rough |
| A．adapt | B．acknowledge | C．accomplish | D．adopt |
| A．exchanging | B．reminding | C．persisting | D．concerning |
| A．expect | B．treasure | C．test | D．appreciate |
| A．relieve | B．settle | C．comfort | D．signal |
| A．turned | B．kicked | C．fell | D．crushed |
| A．key | B．indirect | C．wide | D．negative |
| A．leak | B．collapse | C．lift | D．resist |
| A．strike | B．take | C．investigate | D．analyze |
10 . A new report says plastics are responsible for $13 billion in damage to the oceans and the undersea environment. The findings were announced recently at a United Nations conference.
Plastic thrown away carelessly makes its way into rivers and other waterways. The plastic eventually reaches coastal areas and ocean waters. After a while, it collects in the sea. And plastic never goes away. Plastic is not biodegradable — destroyed by bacteria or natural processes. Instead, it just breaks up into smaller pieces over time. The oceans contain a lot of chemicals and other pollutants.
The report also calls on companies to improve methods for using plastics.
| A．But people can make a big difference. |
| B．Plastics should be gathered together and reused. |
| C．Then, fish may eat the plastics. |
| D．It is convenient to use plastic bags in everyday life. |
| E．It asks for them to better measure and direct plastic use. |
| F．The report tells about harm to sea life and what might be done to improve the situation. |
