3 . 语篇填空

Nowadays, our living conditions are becoming increasingly serious owing to the destruction of our environment. Many plants and     1    (animal) are endangered, and all the food chain has been destroyed,     2     has aroused a wide concern among people.

It is obvious that there are many reasons     3     this phenomenon. Firstly, the overuse of natural resources has a bad effect on     4     balance of natural ecology. Secondly, the population of the world is increasing rapidly, making the world too     5     (crowd) for us to live in. Thirdly, it is the smoke released from factories and cars that     6     (pollute) the environment badly.

Personally, I hold the view that effective measures must be taken     7     (improve) the present situation. To begin with, the government must     8     (sure) pass laws to prevent people from throwing rubbish everywhere, and prevent factories from harming the environment. Besides, as a member of the society, we are bound to do something for environmental     9     (protect), such as planting more trees,     10     (recycle) natural resources and so on. I’m sure that things will be better in the near future if we insist on doing like this.

4 . 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。

Factory farming involves     1     (keep) farm animals inside buildings to increase the production of meat or eggs. According to an institute, “74% of the world’s poultry, 43% of its beef and 68% of its eggs     2     (produce) in this way.”

The main     3     (argue) for factory farming is that, apart from being a lot cheaper than     4     (tradition) or organic farming, it     5     (provide) more food for a world population that has already reached seven billion. As factory farms do not use many workers, the costs are low and the production is high. Moreover, factory-farmed animals suffer from     6     (few) diseases than those living outside.

On the other hand, opponents of factory farming say that it is cruel to the animals. For instance, many farm animals are kept in small spaces     7     they can hardly move. In addition to this, factory farming has a negative impact     8     the environment because it creates a lot of waste products, and uses a lot of chemicals to control insects and drugs     9     (treat) diseases.

To sum up, despite producing cheap food, factory farming is bad for the planet and for the animals themselves. We should try to reduce this kind of farming, although we would have to pay more for our eggs     10     meat.

6 . London is in a valley. So towns in valleys see the surrounding air staying to the lower point. During the night, cold air from surrounding hills falls down in the valleys. The fog reputation of London, which called the smog, comes from the fact that the houses were, in the past, heated by coal. Houses and factories gave off much pollution in the air and, in order to condense (浓缩) into tiny water droplets, moisture (湿度) needs to be in contact with something that has a mass. So, the valley, the city, the coal heating, a high pressure with no wind and staying air... and you get the London’s smog.

In common with many countries, Britain has serious environmental problems. In 1952,more than 4,000 people died in London because of the worst smog. The government introduced new laws to stop smog from coal fires and factories and the situation improved a lot.

Today, London is much cleaner but there is a new problem: smog from cars. In December 1991,there was very little wind in London and pollution increased a lot. As a result, about 160 people died from pollution in just four days.

Part of the problem is the new “out of town” shopping centers. In the past, people often walked to shops near their homes or went by bus. Now, many people drive to the new shopping centers. As a result, the small shops have disappeared and more people have to travel to do their shopping.

Many people are trying to reduce the use of cars in Britain. Some cities now have special bicycle paths and many people cycle to work. Some people also travel to work together in one car to reduce the pollution and cost.

Sometimes people take “direct action”. In 1995,for example, many people wanted to stop a new road from being built near Newbury. They set up houses in trees and lived there for many months. It took a long time to force the people out of the trees before the construction work on the road could continue.

1. Which of the following isn’t the direct cause of smog in London?

A．The valley.

B．The staying air.

C．The coal heating.

D．The developed industry.

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The government once introduced a law against smog from cars and factories.

B．London is much cleaner than before so nobody dies from pollution any longer.

C．Now smog in London mainly comes from cars.

D．The “direct action” taken in 1995 was a successful example of people reducing the use of cars.

3. What makes people do the shopping by car?

A．They prefer to do shopping in big shopping centers outside the town.

B．Small shops near their homes have disappeared.

C．Many new shopping centers have appeared outside the town.

D．It has become a fashion to do shopping in large shopping centers.

4. What is the best title for this passage?

A．To Reduce the Use of Cars	B．The Disadvantages Brought by the Use of Cars
C．Smog from Cars in Britain	D．People’s Actions against Smog

8 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. balance            B. communicate            C. contaminated            D. deprive                  E. disruptive F. dramatically       G. interrupt                 H. mate                       I. occupational            J. respectively K. vibrations

Noisy Earth

When we think of pollution, we usually think of harmful toxins in the environment. For example, air pollution is    1    air that can be dangerous to breathe. But there is another kind of pollution which can be just as harmful to living things as other types of pollution.

Noise pollution consists of loud sounds in the environment that are    2    . Just like other types of pollution, noise pollution is caused by humans and is mainly a problem in urbans. Car alarm sirens, construction work and the roar of engines are just a few examples of noise pollution.

Why should we be concerned about noise pollution? According to a World Health Organization report, noise can cause serious health problems. It may    3    people of sleep and causes heart disease and hearing loss. These problems are    4    hazards for people who work in noisy places. Musicians, mechanics, police officers, and airport workers all have to put up with noise pollution.

Physical health problems are just some of the effects of noise. Noise also affects learning ability and memory. Noise poses a threat to animals in nature as well, which can cause them to die from lack of food. For example, some types of birds cannot find food in areas that have bad noise pollution. Whales, for example, produce sounds in order to     5    with each other. Noises in the ocean from ships and other human activities can    6    whale communication. The noises can also affect the ability of whales to find a    7    , which could reduce whale populations. In addition, researchers discovered that noise pollution can cause physical harm to those marine animals. They found several dead giant squids off the coast of Spain. In this respect,     8    from the guns of naval ships in the area tore holes in the squids’ statocysts. Statocysts are organs behind the squids’ eyes that help them maintain    9    . Damage to the statocysts made it impossible for the squids to swim, eat, or reproduce, and they died.

Countries around the world recognize that noise pollution is a real problem. Many government agencies already control noise from trucks and buses. Noise barriers covered with plants along the highway    10    reduced noise for nearby apartment dwellers. With these health and safety regulations and increased awareness, we may be able to live in a quieter world.

10 . 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.     1    It has quickly come into the spotlight this year, thanks to growing media coverage and teams of scientists who took a voyage in August to study the patch.

    2    Shoes, toys, bags, wrappers, toothbrushes, and bottles too numerous to count are only part of what can be found in this dump floating midway between Hawaii and San Francisco.

But how did so much garbage get there?     3    The patch moves with the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a high pressure zone of air which forces ocean surface currents to move in a slowly clockwise pattern. This creates a whirlpool which sucks garbage problem: plastic that begins in human hands yet ends up in the ocean. Organic materials and garbage from other sources will eventually break down, but plastics do not, although they do break into smaller and smaller pieces.

    4    The area supports minimal sea life, because the garbage patch restricts the limited area of water which sea plants can live in. Other marine life including birds, mammals, fish and jellyfish also suffers because they mistake the garbage for food. A great deal of marine life is then consumed by humans, resulting in their ingestion of poisonous chemicals.

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.