1 . 阅读下面的短文，在空白处填入 1 个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Honking cars, blasting stereos and babbling neighbors are     1     (whole) affecting people’s daily life: consider it all part of the symphony that plays daily on New York City streets. Everyone knows the city is loud, and a losing war against noise     2     (wage) for a long time. Now they have a new weapon     3     (invite) to many citizens: noise cameras.

The cameras     4     (pair) with a sound meter to detect noise of at least 85 decibels (分贝) from a source 50 ft or more away have recently been fixed on certain streets in Manhattan’s wealthy Upper West Side. It’s part of a program run by the city’s department of environmental protection.

However, Erica Walker, who studies the joint     5     community noise and health, believes most noise   comes from poor city planning rather than individual bad actions, and that noise cameras are merely Band -Aids for a more systemic issue. Actually,     6     (far) research still needs to be done on the economic effects of noise cameras. The public is supposed to zero in on the dangers and economic costs of noise pollution     7     can blight some proceeds and urge that appropriate actions     8     (carry) out.

On the other hand,     9     lecturer at Columbia University expressed concern about the surveillance (监视) capabilities of noise cameras. “It is being tried for the possibility     10     (leak) privacy still. Does this present a   privacy risk for residents of the city? ” she held the question.

2 . 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

3 . 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.

4 . Rain is vital to life on Earth. However, rain isn’t just made of water anymore—it’s partly made of plastic.

Millions of tiny pieces of plastic, called microplastics, are wandering around Earth’s atmosphere and traveling across entire continents, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 12. Another study, published in the journal Science in June 2020, has revealed that every year more than 1,000 tons of the particles (颗粒)—equivalent to over 120 million plastic bottles—fall in rain.

Microplastics are plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in diameter (直径) and come from a number of sources. Plastic bags and bottles released into the environment break down into smaller and smaller bits. Some microplastics are manufactured deliberately to provide abrasion (研磨) in a host of products, such as toothpaste and cleansers, according to the Daily Mail. Another major source is your washing machine. When you wash synthetic (合成的) clothing, tiny microfibers get flushed (冲掉) away with the wastewater. Even though the water is treated by a wastewater plant, the microplastics remain, and they are released into the sea, according to American magazine Wired.

Plastic rain may remind people of acid rain, but the former is far more widespread and harder to deal with. The tiny particles, too small to be seen with the naked eye, are collected by the wind from the ground. They are so light that they stay in the air to be blown around the globe. As they climb into the atmosphere, they are thought to act as nuclei (核心) around which water vapor (水蒸气) condenses (凝结) to form clouds. Some of the dust falls back to land in dry conditions, while the rest comes down as rain, according to the Daily Mail.

Microplastics have been found everywhere you can imagine. From fish and frogs to mice and mosquitoes, their bodies have been found, on average, to contain 40 pieces of microplastic, reported Daily Mail. As the top of the food chain, humans are exposed to microplastics, too. “We live on a ball inside a bubble,” microplastic researcher Steve Allen at University of Strathclyde, Scotland, told Wired. “There are no borders, there are no edges. It (plastic rain) raining on the land and then getting blown back up into the air again, to move somewhere else. There’s no stopping it once it’s out.”

1. What does paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．How microplastics should be handled.	B．How microplastics are used widely.
C．How microplastics pollute water.	D．How microplastics come into being.

2. What do we know about microplastics?

A．They are light and can be easily dealt with.

B．They result in both acid rain and plastic rain.

C．They have a diameter of at least 5 millimeters.

D．They have nearly affected the whole food chain.

3. What do Steve Allen’s words mean in the last paragraph?

A．No place is safe from microplastic pollution.

B．The atmosphere possesses the capacity to self-cleanse.

C．Countries should work together to fight plastic pollution.

D．It is important to remove microplastics somewhere else.

4. What’s the main purpose of the article?

A．To compare acid rain and plastic rain.

B．To warn people of the dangers of microplastics.

C．To call on people to reduce using plastic products.

D．To introduce the sources and effects of microplastics.

5 . 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