1 . Remember boiling tap water for drinking? Who has the time now? Instead, bottled water is everywhere, in offices, airplanes, stores, homes and restaurants. But what’s in that bottle? Beautiful names and labels depicting romantic scenes have convinced us that the liquid is the purest drink around. But given the lack of labeling requirements for bottled water, how much do consumers really know about what’s in the bottle? “The public should not assume that water purchased in a bottle, is better regulated purer, or safer than most tap water. Water utilities are required to tell the public more about the tap water than bottled water companies are,” says Mae Wu, a bottled water (expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit organization in the US devoted to protecting health and the environment. Sure, some bottled water comes from sparkling springs and other, sources. But in the US, alone, more than 25 percent of it comes from a municipal (市政的) supply. The water is treated, purified and sold to us, often at a thousand fold increase in price. Most people are surprised to learn that they are drinking glorified tap water, but bottlers aren’t required to list the source on the label.
According to the Asian Bottled Water Association, water from municipal supply does not have to state on its label that it is from a community water system. However, there are some brands like Nestle Pure Life that indicate whether the water comes from public, private or deep well sources. Advertising can be misleading at best and deceptive at worst. In a recent case, a food and drink manufacturer boasted in a TV commercial that its mineral water came from a “high-quality water source” but it turned out that, that was no more than plain tap water.
The potential health risks are important to understand, but bottled water also affects the health of the planet. While we struggle to, cut down on our consumption of fossil fuels, bottled water increases it. Virgin petroleum (石油) is used to make PET, and the more bottles we use, the more virgin petroleum will be needed to create new bottles. Fossil fuels are burned to fill the bottles and distribute them. Some brands of water come from islands and countries thousands of kilometers away, and shipping bottles can cause carbon pollution to spill into the water and spew into the air.
1. Compared to the tap water, bottled water .| A．is much better, than the tap water |
| B．is better regulated, purer and safer |
| C．spends more money on advertisement |
| D．is required to list the source on the label |
| A．We can never trust the TV commercials. |
| B．Advertisements on bottled water always cheat the audiences. |
| C．Some companies choose to state where the water comes from. |
| D．The government asks the company not to state the source of water. |
| A．Through listing, figures. |
| B．Through making comparisons. |
| C．Through adding background information. |
| D．Through cause and effect argumentation. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Negative. | C．Favorable. | D．Ambiguous. |
2 . There have been numerous wake-up calls about the effects of climate change on sea life. As ocean waters heat up, they are making coral lose color. Growing levels of carbon dioxide are making seawater more acidic. Now climate change is starting to affect fish's sense of smell, a phenomenon that will worsen in the coming years if global warming continues growing.
A sense of smell is what the fish can't do without. They use it to find food, detect upcoming danger, escape from predators (捕食者）find safe environments, and even recognize one another. "Future levels of carbon dioxide can have large negative effects on the sense of smell of fish, which can affect fish population numbers and the entire ecosystem, ”said an ocean life expert. "This can be prevented, but we must reduce carbon emissions now before it's too late.”
Experts believe that about half of carbon dioxide emissions produced by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels--have over time ended up in the oceans, lowering the pH of seawater, and making it more acidic.
Researchers found that sea bass (鲈鱼）exposed to the more acidic conditions swam less and were less likely to react when encountering the smell of a predator. Also, they were more likely to "freeze", a sign of anxiety, according to the study. They found the longer the fish were in high CO2,the worse they got along. The researchers also measured the ability of the fish to detect certain odors (气味）in different levels of acidity (酸度）。 The study showed that their ability to detect and respond to some odors connected with food and threatening situations was more strongly affected than other odors.
The research is important because 20 percent of the protein consumed by 3 million people comes from seafood, and about 50 percent of this comes from fish caught from the wild. “Therefore, increases in carbon dioxide in the ocean have the potential to affect all fish species, including those that many people rely on food and livelihood, "the ocean life expert warned.
1. What do we know from the first paragraph?| A．Global warming will continue in the coming years. |
| B．Global warming is starting to affect fish's sense of smell. |
| C．The temperature of seawater is rising to a dangerous level. |
| D．Few people are worried about the impact of climate change. |
| A．It can affect the survival of fish. |
| B．Fish can stay safe with their sense of smell. |
| C．Fish rely on their sense of smell to find food. |
| D．Fish can find each other by their sharp noses. |
| A．He wants to blame human beings for global warming. |
| B．He wants to criticize human beings for overuse of fossil fuels. |
| C．He concludes that human activities can destroy the sense of smell of fish. |
| D．He concludes that human activities can improve the ecosystem of the ocean. |
| A．Satisfied. | B．Enthusiastic. | C．Disappointed. | D．Concerned. |
3 . In between all the measures to battle the severe air pollution in Delhi,India,there’s one more option-a bar that has”pure air”.
Founded by Aryavir Kumar,Oxy Pure,Delhi’s first-ever oxygen bar,offers 15 minutes of 80-90 percent pure oxygen,costing Rs 299($4.2).Customers are given a lightweight tube for oxygen intake.The device(装置)is placed near the customer’s nostrils(鼻孔)through which they are advised to breathe in the oxygen.
The bar also offers its customers several aromas(气味)to go with oxygen,including lemongrass,cherry and more.According to the aroma people choose,each session promises to improve sleep patterns and digestion,cure headaches,and even claims to work as a treatment for depression.
Bonny Irengbam,a senior sales assistant at the bar,said,”Some people,who try it for the first time,will feel relaxed and fresh.But only people who do this regularly will get real benefits.By regularly,I mean once or twice a month.We don’t encourage back-to-back sessions,as increased levels of oxygen in the body can make a person dizzy.”
Dr.Rajesh Chawla,a senior doctor at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital,said,”Even if you breathe in the so-called pure oxygen for two hours in a day,you will go back to breathing the polluted air for the rest of the 22 hours.The concept is purely money-driven.”
Recalling the first few months of the bar,Irengbam admitted that people were sceptical. “Many people criticised,saying we were selling air.Others were simply scared to breathe through the tube.”
Irengbam said the bar saw a significant rise in the number of customers two to three days after Diwali,an Indian festival mainly celebrated by fireworks and lights,as the pollution levels were high.
1. What do we know about the oxygen intake?| A．It surely has a promising future. |
| B．It will always cause side effects. |
| C．It was not well received at first. |
| D．It can cure people of depression. |
| A．Once-a-month. |
| B．Once-in-a-while. |
| C．Once-and-for-all. |
| D．One-after-another. |
| A．Doubtful. |
| B．Positive. |
| C．Unconcerned. |
| D．Ambiguous. |
| A．To explain how to breathe in the oxygen. |
| B．To introduce the first oxygen bar in India. |
| C．To show people’s responses to the device. |
| D．To advertise for Aryavir Kumar’s business. |
4 . If plastic had been invented when the Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth, England, to North America - and their Mayflower had been stocked with bottled water and plastic-wrapped snacks, their plastic waste would likely still be around four centuries later. Atlantic waves and sunlight would have worn all that plastic into tiny bits. And those bits might still be 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 - the figure that shocked the scientists who published the numbers in 2017.
No one knows how much unrecycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean, the earth’s last sink. In 2015, Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia 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 harmed visibly, 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, the bits smaller than one-fifth of an inch across.
“This isn’t a problem where we don’t know what the solution is,” says Ted Siegler, a Vermont resource economist who has spent more than 25 years working with developing nations on garbage. “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 institutions and systems, he says, ideally before the ocean turns into a thin soup of plastic.
1. Why does the author mention the Pilgrims in paragraph 1?| A．To prove plastic was difficult to invent. |
| B．To introduce what marine animals like eating. |
| C．To tell the Pilgrims contributed a lot to the marine protection. |
| D．To show plastic waste has a lasting effect on the ocean. |
| A．Lacking protection. | B．Being stuck by plastics. |
| C．Being caught by humans. | D．Treating plastics as food. |
| A．Some people don’t know the solution of plastics waste. |
| B．Plastics will turn the ocean into a soup of plastic. |
| C．It’s time to take measures to deal with plastic waste. |
| D．People should avoid using plastics to protect the ocean. |
| A．A biology textbook. | B．A travel brochure. |
| C．An environmental report. | D．A lifestyle magazine. |
5 . Off the Marianas Islands, in a remote stretch of the Pacific Ocean, lies a deep trench. A trench so deep that it could accommodate the tallest mountain range—the Himalayas, and still have a mile of water above!
The Mariana Trench stretches for 2, 550km along the Pacific Ocean floor and is 70km wide. The deepest part of the trench, Challenger Deep, lies 7 miles below the ocean surface. Mariana Trench is part of a network of trenches that cross the ocean floor.
How do these trenches form? Our Earth is made up of tectonic plates which connect with each other like giant jigsaw puzzles. The plates are constantly moving because of the molten lava inside our Earth. When one tectonic plate dives under another plate, trenches are formed.
The sheer depth of Mariana Trench makes it hard to explore. Sunlight does not reach that far down, covering it in permanent darkness. The water pressure at the deepest point is nearly 1,000 times more than at the surface. Despite these inhospitable conditions, some of the strangest creatures are found in the trench—creatures that produce their own light.
A team of researchers decided to study the zone, an area of water that is 3.7 miles to 6.8 miles below the surface.
The research team sent traps underwater to catch the tiny prawn-like amphipods (片脚动物) and tested them. They found extremely high levels of chemicals, known to cause health issues like cancer. These family of chemicals known as POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) were used extensively in pesticides until they were banned in the 1970s, and some are still in use today.
The POPs do not break down. They are ingested by the larger marine animals and when they die and sink to the bottom of the oceans, the smaller creatures feast on them. The chemicals then enter the bodies of these amphipods and other smaller marine creatures, and disrupt their hormone balances. And thus, the cycle continues.
While we may think that our oceans are pristine, this latest finding tells us that in a trench far……far away from any industrial city, we humans are leaving our footprint.
1. According to the text, the Mariana Trench ________.| A．covers the Pacific Ocean floor |
| B．remains dark all the time |
| C．is like a giant jigsaw puzzle |
| D．lies 7km below the ocean surface |
| A．the molten lava inside the earth |
| B．the cause of moving plates |
| C．the formation of the trench |
| D．the make-up of tectonic plates |
| A．By taking some soil from the ocean bottom. |
| B．By measuring the water pressure. |
| C．By getting some water from the trench. |
| D．By analyzing the creatures living in the trench. |
| A．The Mariana Trench is seriously polluted. |
| B．The Mariana Trench is totally dark. |
| C．The Mariana Trench is deadly poisonous. |
| D．The Mariana Trench is greatly wonderful. |
6 . Rescue workers had collected 820 birds from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the majority of them already dead. The current spill promises to be the largest in US history, and as cleanup efforts stretch across the summer, it's clear that more oiled birds will be found, stuck and suffering in the black stick liquid. And as they do with every oil spill, rescue workers will go to great lengths to capture and clean the survivors hoping to restore them to their natural habitat.
Is it worth the effort? Some scientists aren’t so sure. Because the stress of being captured and bathed is as significant as the horror of being immersed in oil, and because research suggests that many rescued birds die shortly after being released, some experts say euthanasia (安乐死) is a more humane option.
Clean bird feathers repel water (防水) and regulate body temperature while dirty ones don't. Oil in particular makes feathers heavier and decreases their ability to trap air, which in turn makes birds weak and become easier to drowning, overheating and organ damage. Of course, being captured and cleaned is no picnic either. Some birds wind up returning to their destroyed habitats only to fall victim to the oil again. And those who manage to avoid a second oil bath suffer dramatically shortened life spans (跨度) and lower reproductive success. Of the thousands of birds that were rescued from the Prestige oil spill off the coast of Spain in 2002, only 600 were released into the wild; most of the rest died after just a few days in captivity.
However, bird rescuers say they have learned a lot about how to best help oil-soaked birds, and that therefore, survival rates stand to increase this time around. In the past, birds were cleaned right away, and volunteers often worked through the night bathing rescued birds. But now, captured birds are left to rest for a day or two before being cleaned, and only washed during the day, so as not to disrupt their circadian (生理的) rhythms. But part of that increase may be due to greater selectivity on the part of rescuers. The workers do blood tests right in the field now and birds that are loaded with hydrocarbons (碳氢化合物) or don’t look like they’re going to make it are put down right away, rather than subjected to the stress of captivity and cleaning.
And so far, while release rates may be improving, there is little evidence of better medium or long-term survival, especially for the more-difficult-to-save species. There still aren’t good protocols (协议) for repairing the internal organ damage. Anyway, rescue efforts will continue in large part because the public demands that. Euthanasia is a difficult thing to do, especially for people who have built their lives around saving animals.
1. Why do some scientists doubt the effort to rescue oiled birds?| A．Because it has cost too much time and money. |
| B．Because human may be infected with the bird virus. |
| C．Because it is torture followed by death to birds. |
| D．Because migrant birds may broaden the pollution. |
| A．thousands of birds were polluted by oil |
| B．the survival rate of oiled birds was very low |
| C．the efforts to rescue oiled birds were ineffective |
| D．captivity is an impractical method to rescue binds |
| A．Oiled birds are kept in warm water for one or two days |
| B．The second cleaning of the oiled birds in daytime is not permitted |
| C．The rescuers often select the birds that are likely to survive |
| D．Hydrocarbons are removed to rescue the oiled birds |
| A．Oiled birds’ internal organ damage is permanent. |
| B．Euthanasia is a difficult and heart-aching operation. |
| C．The more-difficult-to-save species will die by cleaning. |
| D．The rescue is oiled birds’ suffering while seeing them die is cruel. |
7 . The loud noise of the cars or the sound of a plane can force its way into the deepest forest, yet it’s not only humans that are bothered by the noise.
Bioacoustician Bernie Krause has been studying the effect of noise pollution on wildlife, and has come across some interesting behaviors, especially among animals that communicate by sound, like humans. Birds use sound to communicate, but in noisy places, these animals have to shout over the natural noise to be heard.
Krause mentions a study of nightingales(夜莺) to explain what he means. The birds responded to（回应） traffic noise by singing louder and louder until they actually went beyond noise pollution standards in the city. To belt out (sing loudly) their songs, they increased their lung pressure fivefold, but scientists say that this is not dangerous for the birds themselves.
Studies show that sudden noise can cause certain birds to leave their nests, leaving the young to their enemies. One study also showed that songbirds that nested close to busy motorways were much less productive than those that nested farther away. Mammals（哺乳动物）too are affected(影响). A recent study showed that nursing caribou（驯鹿） responded to plane noise by not producing enough milk to feed their young.
In some cases noise pollution can actually help some animals while harming others. Toads（蟾蜍）and frogs are known to sing in union（同步发声）so that no predator (their enemies) can catch them. Krause found that when planes flew overhead and disturbed the toad’s song, they lost their union, and it took them 45 minutes to get it back again. That gave their natural enemies plenty of time to find and catch individual toads by sound.
According to Kruse, “Not only will noise pollution bother wildlife, but it won’t help our lives either.”
1. How do young caribou suffer from aircraft noise?| A．.They can’t hear their mothers. | B．They can’t sleep at night. |
| C．They are often displaced. | D．They receive less food. |
| A．They would soon regain their rhythm. |
| B．They would stop communicating. |
| C．They might not be able to protect themselves. |
| D．They might ne unable to hunt in groups. |
| A．The ways animals communicate with each other. |
| B．The causes of noise pollution. |
| C．Animals’ reaction to noises. |
| D．The effects of noise pollution on wildlife. |
The extended heavy pollution over the last month，which caused punishment in return for a day last week－called the “airpocalypse” by internet users－ has largely changed the way that Chinese think about the country's air.On one day，pollution levels were 30 times higher than levels considered safe by the World Health Organization (WHO)．Flights were cancelled.Roads were closed.One hospital in east Beijing reported they had treated more than 900 children for breathing issues.Bloomberg found that for most of January，Beijing's air was worse than that of an airport smoking area.
The smog's(烟雾) most threatening aspect is its high concentration(浓度) of PM 2.5 － particulate matter that is small enough to breathe deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream，causing breathing infections，lung cancer and possibly damaging children's development.The WHO has estimated that outdoor air pollution accounts for two million deaths per year，65% of them in Asia.
1. Which conclusion can we draw from the first paragraph?
| A．Hu Li is living in Beijing. |
| B．Hu Li traveled to Tianjin for business. |
| C．The haze is harmful to people. |
| D．The pollution is the worst in Beijing's history. |
| A．the way they traveled |
| B．the opinion about national air |
| C．the way they lived their life |
| D．the life style of internet |
| A．can lead to choke |
| B．can cause heart cancer |
| C．will damage children's development |
| D．will damage people's organ |
| A．Hu Li's attitudes to Beijing's haze |
| B．The damages of Beijing's haze |
| C．WHO suggests improving Beijing's air |
| D．What caused air pollution in Beijing |
Man has been polluting the earth. The more people, the more pollution. Many years ago, the problem was not so serious because there were not so many people. When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place, man moved to another place. But this is no longer true.
Man is now slowly polluting the whole world.
Air pollution is still the most serious. It’s bad for all living things in the world, but it is not the only one kind of pollution. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us angry more easily.
Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories in the city, and from putting dirty smoke into the air. Pollution by SO2 is now the most dangerous kind of air pollution. It is caused by heavy traffic. We are sure that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.
The earth is our home. We must take care of it. That means keeping the land, water and air clean. And we must take care of the rise in pollution at the same time.
1. _______, our world is becoming much smaller.
| A．Because of the rise in pollution |
| B．Thanks to science development |
| C．Because the earth is being polluted day and night |
| D．Because the earth is blown away by the wind every year |
| A．much easier than | B．as easy as |
| C．much harder than | D．as hard as |
| A．rubbish(垃圾) | B．noise pollution |
| C．air pollution | D．water pollution |
| A．it makes much noise |
| B．it makes us angry more easily |
| C．it makes our rivers and lakes dirty |
| D．it’s bad for all living things in the world |
| A．Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. |
| B．The pollution of the earth grows as fast as the world population does. |
| C．The problem of pollution is not so serious because there are not so many people living on the earth. |
| D．If people could go to work by bus or bike instead of car or motorbike, it would be helpful in fighting against the problem of SO2. |
