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.

2. Which word can replace the underlined word “disrupt” in Paragraph 2?

A．Defeat.

B．Harm.

C．Attract.

D．Discourage.

3. What can we infer from the last two paragraphs?

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.

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

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

5 . If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars, we would go in darkness happily, the midnight world as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal (夜间活动的) species on this planet. Instead, we are diurnal creatures, with eyes adapted to living in the sun’s light. This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don’t think of ourselves as diurnal beings. Yet it’s the only way to explain what we’ve done to the night: We’ve engineered it to receive us by filling it with light.

The benefits of this kind of engineering come with consequences — called light pollution — whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky. Ill-designed lighting washes out the darkness of night and completely changes the light levels — and light rhythms — to which many forms of life, including, ourselves, have adapted. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect or life is affected.

In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze (霾) that mirrors our fear of the dark. We’ve grown so used to this orange haze that the original glory of an unlit night — dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadow on Earth — is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost.

We’ve lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further from the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing. Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet (磁铁). The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being “captured” by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms. Migrating at night, birds tend to collide with brightly lit tall buildings.

Frogs living near brightly lit highways suffer nocturnal light levels that are as much as a million times brighter than normal, throwing nearly every aspect of their behavior out of joint, including their nighttime breeding choruses. Humans are less trapped by light pollution than the frogs. Like most other creatures, we do need darkness. Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself.

Living in a glare of our own making, we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural heritage — the light of the stars and the rhythms of day and night. In a very real sense light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way — the edge of our galaxy — arching overhead.

1. According to the passage, human beings__________.

A．prefer to live in the darkness

B．are used to living in the day light

C．were curious about the midnight world

D．had to stay at home with the light of the moon

2. What does “it” (Paragraph 1) most probably refer to?

A．The night.

B．The moon.

C．The sky.

D．The planet.

3. The writer mentions birds and frogs to __________.

A．provide examples of animal protection

B．show how light pollution affects animals

C．compare the living habits of both species

D．explain why the number of certain species has declined

4. It is implied in the last paragraph that _________.

A．light pollution dose harm to the eyesight of animals

B．light pollution has destroyed some of the world heritages

C．human beings cannot go to the outer space

D．human beings should reflect on their position in the universe

5. What might be the best title for the passage?

A．The Magic Light	B．The Orange Haze
C．The Disappearing Night	D．The Rhythms of Nature

6 . Lithium (锂) is called “white gold” for good reason. The metal’s value has been growing sharply over the last several years, in a large part because it is an essential part of batteries as well as several key sustainable technologies where energy storage is of huge significance. As electric cars, wind and solar power have grown into major players in the energy industry, lithium has become key to engineering a future free of fossil (化石) fuels.

But acquiring lithium comes at an enormous cost. It often works like this: Water containing lithium is delivered to the surface from underground and mixed with fresh water. The mixture then sits in pools to get rid of water, leaving the rest of its contents behind as brightly colored “mud”. Then heat and chemical reactions are used to get lithium from that, changing it into powder which is then packaged and shipped to buyers around the world.

Any accident that releases mine contents into surrounding communities or the groundwater supply could have unimaginable long-term impacts. To be specific, indigenous (土著的) communities often bear the damage, and political leaders have typically given little weight to their concerns. In Arizona, for example, an expanding lithium mine is threatening the Hualapai Tribe’s cultural and historic sites. Recently, mining lithium and other precious metals has brought about conflict: How do you ensure the availability of materials essential to the future of renewables while protecting those communities’ rights?

Mining of the metal is expected to increase dramatically in coming years. Over time, experts say, that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions (排放) by making electric cars more affordable and, therefore, more popular. As environmentally conscious consumers buy electric cars in ever-greater numbers, it’s important to be aware of the dirty process that powers those clean air vehicles.

1. What does the author’s intention of writing Paragraph 1?

A．To introduce the background of an event.	B．To explain a complex industrial theory.
C．To describe a noticeable recent tendency.	D．To predict the future of a main technology.

2. Which may cause enormous environmental damage?

A．Unexpected material leak.	B．Violent chemical reactions.
C．Wrong political decisions.	D．Lithium mine expansion.

3. What’s the author’s attitude towards mining lithium?

A．Intolerant.

B．Uncaring.

C．Favorable.

D．Objective.

4. What’s the most suitable title for the text?

A．High Expense of Lithium Mining	B．Potential Benefit of Using Lithium
C．Hidden Threat behind Clean Energy	D．Bright Future of Renewable Resources

8 . 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.

2. What can we learn from the third paragraph?

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.

3. Which would most likely happen if soot darkened England’s trees again?

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.

4. We can infer from the text that in England ________.

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

9 . 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.

2. What can we learn from the third paragraph?

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.

3. Which would most likely happen if soot darkened England’s trees again?

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.

4. We can infer from the text that in England ________     .

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