1 . Plastic pollution has long been a problem, but now it's gotten to a new height literally. Microplastic, referring to plastic fragments and particles less than 5 millimeters in diameter, have been found on Mount Qomolangma as high as 8,440 meters above sea level, just 408.86 meters below the peak of the mountain, according to a recent study published in the journal One Earth.
“These are the highest microplastics ever discovered so far.” lead author Imogen Napper from the University of Plymouth, UK, said in a statement. Scientists collected snow and water samples from 19 different locations from 4,200 meters above sea level all the way up to the summit of Mount Qomolangma. They found microplastics in all the water samples and part of the snow samples. The most polluted sample was from the Base Camp in Nepal, where most human activities on the mountain are concentrated. It had 79 particles of microplastics per liter of snow.
But how have these fragments made it all this way and in such a great abundance? The answer is apparent human activities. It is climbers who bring plastic products to the mountain. Even if they don't litter, just walking for 20 minutes or opening a bottle of water can release microplastics into the environment.
The harsh fact is that plastic pollution has reached even the most remote places on Earth. Researchers even found a plastic bag al the deepest point in the world's oceans—in the Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific Ocean. The bag is the same as the ones commonly used in grocery stores. Even covered in ice, the Arctic is still a victim of plastic pollution. A 2020 report published in Nature suggests that there are 2.000 to 17,000 plastic particles per cubic meter in Arctic ice cores, and between 0 to 18 microplastic particles per cubic meter from the water beneath ice floes. Experts think microplastics may be transported by air and then reach the North Pole in snowfall.
“What we don t yet fully know is the potential problems these tiny pieces of plastic could be having to ecosystems, to organisms and even to our own health as well,” said Christian Dunn of Bangor University, UK. Then what can we do? “We need to start focusing on deeper technological solutions that focus on microplastics, like changing fabric design and including natural fibers instead of plastic when possible.”
1. What are the first two paragraphs mainly about?| A．The polluted samples from the peak were the most serious. |
| B．Plastic pollution has been discovered at high altitudes. |
| C．Humans have .climbed to the peak of Mount Qomolangma. |
| D．Microplastics are a newly-found material by researchers. |
| A．Microplastics may go far beyond the range of human activities. |
| B．The means of microplastics transportation has been confirmed. |
| C．There are frequent exchanges between Arctic ice cores and ice floes. |
| D．Bags from grocery stores are the main source of plastic pollution. |
| A．to prohibit the use of plastic products | B．to diversify the design of microplastics |
| C．to apply only natural fibrous alternatives | D．to develop more advanced technologies |
| A．Litter in the Mariana Trench | B．New One Earth Campaigns |
| C．Pollution Reaches New Height | D．Adventurous Human Activists |
2 . My husband and I always wanted to go to the Caribbean but didn’t know much about the islands or how we were going to afford it. By chance, a friend of ours in Australia mentioned “pet sitting” and that it is something you can do all over the world.
We quickly created an account on a pet sitting website and began searching for options. There were only a couple of sits available in that part of the world, but we tried our luck, sent a request, and to our surprise, landed a three-month job in Grenada, so our year was going to be taken up with Caribbean pet sits.
Inspired by a Canadian couple, we decided to start our own travel blog. We began by writing about The British Virgin Islands, highlighting the beautiful beaches. However, for every photo album of a beautiful beach, there were 10 photos of trash (垃圾). It was hard to ignore the plastic pollution issue, especially on such primitive and remote beaches. So, we began to share photos of the trash we saw and how much we could pick upon our daily dog walks.
The more we looked into plastic pollution, the more we realized the severity of the global plastic pollution. From that point, we used our platform to create awareness and highlight ways to say no to plastic and travel plastic-free. We changed our daily routines, our way of living, and even our diets to accommodate more organic foods and little to no plastic packaging.
It’s been over three years now and we continue to do what we can. This journey has led us to some amazing places, working with great brands and even organizing a country-wide beach clean-up campaign in Grenada.
Our aim now is to keep on going. We love connecting with like-minded people. It’s been amazing few years that was sparked by a conversation about pet sitting. Who would have guessed?
1. Why did the author do pet sitting?| A．To cover travel expenses. | B．To raise fund. |
| C．To conserve the environment. | D．To shoot beautiful beaches. |
| A．Pet sitting is a new sort of occupation. |
| B．The Caribbean is a perfect travel destination. |
| C．Travel blog is a superb way to gain popularity. |
| D．Actions should be taken to fight plastic pollution. |
| A．Challenging. | B．Significant. | C．Adventurous. | D．Unbearable. |
| A．Shifting Lifestyles by Pet Sitting | B．Address Global Environment Pollution |
| C．Unexpected Gains from Pet Sitting Travel | D．The availability of Pet Sitting in the Caribbean |
3 . There are many kinds of pollution, which can be classified by environment, including air pollution, water pollution, and land pollution. Modern society is also concerned about specific types of pollution, such as noise pollution, light pollution and plastic pollution. Pollution of all kinds may not only have negative effects on the environment and wildlife, but also do harm to human health and well-being.
Although environmental pollution can be caused by natural events such as forest fires and active volcanoes, use of the word “pollution” generally means that the wastes have an anthropocentric source—that is, a source created by human activities. Pollution has accompanied humankind ever since groups of people first congregated and remained for a long time in any one place. Indeed, ancient human settlements are frequently recognized by their wastes, Pollution was not a serious problem as long as there was enough space available for each individual or group. However, with the establishment of permanent settlements by great numbers of people, pollution became a problem, and it has remained one ever since.
By the middle of the 20th century, an awareness of the need to protect air, water, and land environments from pollution had developed among the general public. In particular, the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring focused attention on environmental damage caused by improper use of pesticides such as DDT. In response, major pieces of environmental law and regulation were passed in many countries to control the environmental pollution.
Great efforts are made to limit the release of harmful substances into the environment. Unfortunately, attempts at pollution control are surpassed by the scale of the problem, especially in less-developed countries. Noxious levels of air pollution are common in large cities. To control the pollution completely, we still have a long way to go.
1. What does paragraph 1 mainly talk about?| A．The history of pollution. | B．The types of pollution. |
| C．The causes of pollution. | D．The effects of pollution. |
| A．Natural disasters. | B．Forest fires. |
| C．Volcanoes. | D．Human activities. |
| A．Gathered. | B．Separated. |
| C．Attended. | D．Lived. |
| A．No measures have been taken by the government to control the problems of pollution. |
| B．The book Silent Spring helped to improve the awareness of protecting the environment. |
| C．Silent Spring concentrated on the improper use of plastic bags. |
| D．The pollution has been controlled in less-developed countries. |
4 . Sixty-six years ago, there was one human-built object in Earth’s orbit. It was Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, launched in October 1957. Try to guess how many human-made objects are circling the planet now. Ready?
Your answer is wrong, unless you guessed 100 trillion. That’s a jaw-dropping number. It was provided by an international team of researchers writing in the journal Science. For years, this junk has formed an ever-growing mass near Earth. It’s a danger to spacecraft. The researchers are calling for a global treaty to limit the number of satellites and the amount of rubbish in space.
There are 9,000 active satellites in orbit, the scientists report. That could grow to more than 60,000 by 2030. The rest of that 100 trillion figure includes everything from used-up booster rockets and stray bolts to metal flecks and paint chips. Don’t think a paint chip is harmless. Travelling at 17,500 miles per hour, it can strike a spacecraft hard. The International Space Station is dotted with dents and holes. Astronauts often take shelter in an attached spacecraft to wait out a passing swarm of space debris (残骸). That way, if the station is severely damaged, they can escape in a hurry.
The mess we’ve made in space is like the mess we’ve made in the oceans. Think of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s a mass of floating junk twice the size of Texas. We’ve had centuries to make the ocean dirty. But it has taken just decades for us to do the same in space. That’s why the Science authors include experts in satellite technology and in ocean plastic pollution. “As a marine biologist, I never imagined writing a paper on space,” writes Heather Koldewey, who works at the Zoological Society of London. Cleaning up space, she says, has a lot in common “with the challenges of tackling environmental issues in the ocean.”
Coauthor Moriba Jah is an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “Marine debris and space debris,” he writes, “are both a human-made damage that is unavoidable.”
1. Why is Sputnik mentioned in paragraph 1?| A．To provide background information. |
| B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To make a comparison. |
| D．To tell a story. |
| A．What caused space debris. |
| B．The number of space debris. |
| C．The seriousness of space pollution. |
| D．What astronauts often do in space. |
| A．Ocean pollution is very serious. |
| B．Ocean is the same as space. |
| C．Space pollution is getting worse. |
| D．She is going to write a paper on space. |
| A．There is the same amount of marine debris and space debris. |
| B．Humans are to blame for the space pollution. |
| C．Marine and space pollution are unavoidable. |
| D．Humans can do nothing to prevent space pollution. |
5 . About 12 million tons of plastic wastes are entering the oceans every year. This garbage pollutes the water, kills wildlife and breaks down into small pieces that fish and other creatures eat.
Now a group of Spanish fishermen will receive economic support to catch plastics. It is part of a new project. Carlos Martin is one of the fishermen taking part in the project. He and his partners collect the plastic in the ocean and bring it back to land every week. Martin thinks rivers carry a lot of plastics to the sea. He says his most concern is no more than that the plastics often get caught in the nets, which makes nets not work properly. They take on mud（泥）, causing the nets to break because they weigh so much.
Under the new programs, one million pounds will support ocean cleanup efforts for fishermen like Martin. The money is coming from the European Union and the Catalan government. Sergi Tudela, the General Director of Catalonia Fisheries, is responsible for the cleanup project. He said, "We are hopeful that if we are successful in this project, we can apply it to other areas in the Mediterranean（地中海）."
Government reports show that the amount of plastic wastes washing up along the Spanish coastline has grown by 65 percent in just six years. Fishing equipment makes up a large part of the about 8 to 12 million tons of plastics left in the world's oceans every year.
Martin says the fishing community now understands how big the problem is. He says, "In the past we didn't see it that way. We took the plastic garbage and threw it back into the water. I think that after a few year here we have realized the problem. Nothing is thrown into the water; we collect everything and bring it to shore.
1. What worries Martin most about plastic wastes at the beginning?| A．They pollute the sea environment. |
| B．They affect the quality and taste of fish. |
| C．They prevent the fishing nets from working well. |
| D．They kill wildlife and reduce his fishing amount. |
| A．Getting more money to support the project. |
| B．Getting help from other European countries. |
| C．Spreading the cleanup project to more places. |
| D．Praising the European Union for their helping to the oceans. |
| A．Its members do a lot of work for free. |
| B．It has stopped using plastic fishing equipment. |
| C．It has made positive changes to fight plastic wastes. |
| D．Its members find people sill throw the garbage carelessly. |
| A．New programs are changing fishermen's life |
| B．Money is given to Spanish fishermen to clean up oceans |
| C．Traditional fishing equipment causes a lot of plastic wastes |
| D．Spanish fishermen are encouraging people to clean up oceans |
6 . Lacking a nose, insects such as butterflies and bees use their antennae (触须) to detect smells. Those smells help them find food and more. What happens, though, when air pollution beats the smells on which these creatures depend? Those insects become less likely to visit a flower. That’s the finding of a new study.
People depend on insects to help the plants to make many of the fruits, nuts and vegetables we eat. Past studies showed urban air pollution might hide the smells insects use to find flowers. For instance, ozone(臭氧), an ingredient in smog, can break down the smells from flowers. Computer models predicted this would cause problems for insects seeking flowers for a meal. But scientists weren’t sure that would happen in real life.
James Ryalls and his team decided to find out if it would. Ryalls is a biologist at the University of Reading in England. Working in a field of black mustard plants, his group created a system made up of rings eight meters in diameter. Each area was open, so nearby insects could fly into it. The researchers pumped pollutant gases into these rings: Two rings received diesel fumes(柴油废气). Two more got ozone. Another two got both gases. A final pair of rings was a control and received no added gases.
The tests took place over two summers. During each field season, the scientists counted how many times insects visited the flowers in each ring. “The results were much more severe than we thought,” Ryalls says. Adding both the diesel fumes and ozone pollution “caused up to 90 percent less insects to be able to find the flowers that they need for food,” he says. This was in comparison to the pollutant-free rings. This surprised the scientists and made them worried about the food resources of humans.
1. What is the finding of the new study?| A．Insects have noses. | B．Insects can feel smells. |
| C．Smells are helpful for insects to get food. | D．Polluted air makes insects hard to find food. |
| A．Part. | B．Shape. | C．Flower. | D．Colour. |
| A．Seven rings had gasses. | B．They lasted two summers. |
| C．They were led by a biologist. | D．They were done on the playground. |
| A．Save Flowers. | B．Poor Insects. |
| C．Tests by Researchers. | D．Environment and Food. |
7 . The French Danone company is the latest to replace some plastic water bottles with aluminum (铝) cans. Competitors like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle have also started selling water in aluminum cans.
Replacing plastic water bottles that pollute the seas with recyclable aluminum cans should be an easy way to help the environment, right?
Maybe not.
Aluminum cans might result in less ocean waste, and the metal containers also are lighter than glass or plastic bottles, but they also come with their own cost to the environment. The production of an aluminum can is estimated to release two times as much carbon dioxide into the air as a plastic bottle.
“That’s the dilemma you’re going to have to choose between,” said Ruben Griffioen, an official at beermaker Heineken. He said his company was Lrying to reduce the use of plastic bottles.
Bruce Karas of Coca - Cola North America agreed. He said, “There’s a mix. There are some things that are not that desirable, but if you have five good things and one that isn’t, we’ll all have to make decisions.” He added, “It’ll never be that clean.”
Bottled water is a 19 billion industry. Although its use of cans is increasing, experts say cans are unlikely to completely replace plastic bottles.
Aluminum is costlier than plastic so canned drinks mean higher prices for buyers. Another major consideration is user convenience-cans stay open while bottles can be reclosed. More importantly, there is one barrier to ending the use of plastic water bottles: There may not be enough cans to go around. Beer and wine makers are now also increasingly using aluminum.
1. What’s the advantage of aluminum cans?| A．They are pollution-free. | B．They are lighter. |
| C．They are cost-effective. | D．They are low-carbon. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Disapproving. | C．Neutral | D．Indifferent. |
| A．The wide application of aluminum cans. | B．The promising future aluminum cans |
| C．The major advantages of aluminum cans. | D．The unavoidable limitations of aluminum cans. |
| A．Aluminum Cans or Plastic Bottles? | B．A Blessing or a Misfortune? |
| C．How to Deal with Plastic Bottles? | D．Why Do We Choose Aluminum Cans? |
8 . If you’re worried about your receding hairline (后退的发际线) and you live in a city, you might want to consider moving, as scientists have found exposure to high levels of air pollution may be linked to retention.
New research presented at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress in Madrid found particulate matter (PM) (颗粒物), which is present in polluted air, could impact both hair growth and retention.
The team took cells from the base of hair follicles (毛囊) and then exposed them to the polluted air. They used various concentrations of PM10, and 24 hours later, they tested the samples to detect whether specific hair-growth proteins in the cells had changed at all.
Researchers found that the presence of PM10 decreased levels of the protein responsible for hair growth — beta-catenin — and morphogenesis, the biological process that causes an organism to develop its shape. According to the study, the levels of three other proteins which are responsible for hair growth and hair retention — cyclin D1, cyclin E and CDK2 — were also decreased.
This meant that the greater the level of pollutant, the greater the decrease in proteins was found.
This is one of the first studies to look at the link between pollution and baldness (秃头).
Hyuk Chul Kwon from the Future Science Research Centre in South Korea said: “While the link between air pollution and serious diseases, such as cancer, are well established, there is little to no research on the effect of particulate matter exposure on the human skin, and hair in particular. And our research explains the mode (模式) of action of air pollutants on human hair follicle cells, showing how the most common air pollutants lead to hair loss.”
1. What does the underlined word “retention” in Para 1 refer to?| A．Hair cells. | B．Hair loss. |
| C．Hair growth. | D．Hair-growth proteins. |
| A．Air pollution can increase levels of hair-growth proteins. |
| B．There’s only one protein that is responsible for hair growth. |
| C．Polluted air has no direct impact on hair growth or retention. |
| D．The more serious air pollution, the more likely you’re to lose your hair. |
| A．Meaningful. | B．Negative. |
| C．Unimportant. | D．Objective. |
| A．The solutions to air pollution. |
| B．The growth mechanism of hair. |
| C．The impact of air pollution on health. |
| D．The close link between air pollution and hair loss. |
9 . Microplastic pollution is increasing dramatically around the globe, according to a study of airborne (空气传播的) plastic particles(粒子).
People are already known to breathe, drink and eat microplastics, and research suggests that pollution levels will continue to rise rapidly. The researchers said that inhaling (吸入) these particles can irritate (刺激) lung tissue and lead to serious diseases.
Professor Natalie Mahowald, at Cornell University in the US and part of the research team, said: “But maybe we could solve this before it becomes a huge problem, if we manage our plastics better, before they accumulate (积聚) in the environment and swirl (打旋) around everywhere.”
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined airborne microplastics, which have been far less studied than plastic in oceans and rivers.
The team gathered more than 300 samples of airborne microplastics from 11 sites across the western US. These were the basis for atmospheric modeling that estimated the contribution from different sources, and was the first such study to do so.
They found that roads were the dominant factor in the western US, linked to about 85 percent of the microplastics in the air. These are likely to include particles from tires and brake pads on vehicles, and plastics from litter that had been broken down.
The researchers extended their modeling work to a global level and this suggested that while roads are also likely to be the dominant driver of airborne plastics in Europe, South America and Australia, plastic particles blown up from fields may be a much bigger factor in Africa and Asia.
Professor Andreas Stohl of the University of Vienna’s Faculty of Earth Sciences, and not part of the study team, said: “The study confirms the global-scale nature of microplastic transport in the atmosphere and does a good job in highlighting highly relevant and concerning possibilities, but more measurement data is needed to get a better idea of the sources.”
1. What do we know about microplastic pollution from the text?| A．It has become the most pressing environmental problem. |
| B．The particles can do great harm to our lungs. |
| C．Airborne microplastics have been widely studied. |
| D．There is more plastic in the air than in oceans. |
| A．Its impact varies on different continents. |
| B．Public transportation is largely to blame for it. |
| C．Its dominant driver differs across continents. |
| D．Africa is suffering the most from the pollution. |
| A．predict the potential damages of microplastics. |
| B．understand the nature of airborne plastic pollution globally. |
| C．get more data to understand the sources of microplastics. |
| D．improve the method of collecting samples of microplastics. |
| A．Effects of microplastics on human health | B．Plastic pollution rising rapidly in the air |
| C．Possible solutions to plastic pollution | D．Plastic pollution on the global scale |
10 . Most cities were built on rivers. People originally settled in Paris because of the Seine, and in London for the Thames. A third of New York City’s surface area is water. For centuries, city folk used rivers for shipping, fishing and play. In a rare city without a big river, Johannesburg say, you notice its absence.
Yet in recent decades, we have ignored urban rivers. The Industrial Revolution ruined rivers for more than a century. Huge new urban populations filled them with waste water, factory emissions(排放物) and harmful gases of ships. In Newcastle in the early 1800s, salmon(鲢鱼) had been so plentiful in the River Tyne that apprentices(学徒) were said to have terms in their contracts stating that their masters shouldn’t make them at it every day. By the 1950s, the salmon were gone.
However, in recent decades, cities began cleaning up rivers. The Thames is now the cleanest it has been in 150 years and has seals and the occasional whale, sometimes alive. In cities like Chicago, riverside storehouses have been turned into fashionable restaurants and waterfront apartments. All in all, the latest trend is to change urban waterways into the natural play space so lacking in most cities.
But rivers also need to regain their original purpose as transport center. Passenger traffic may decrease as an urban issue if working from home becomes the norm during and even alter the pandemic. But there’s one form of urban traffic that just keeps growing: deliveries. Imagine using the enormous capacity of shipping to take delivery trucks off the roads. One of the newer Thames barges(驳船) with a capacity of 1, 750 tons can replace 44 large trucks, which uses much less energy and causes less noise pollution. In other words, we need to turn truck drivers into barge captains.
Rivers are the reason our cities are where they are. We just forgot about them.
1. What is paragraph 1 mainly about?| A．The reason for the rise and fall of cities. |
| B．The importance of rivers to cities. |
| C．The changes in cities along the rivers. |
| D．The locations of the famous rivers. |
| A．To indicate masters were generous to them. |
| B．To blame them for the mass extinction of salmon. |
| C．To imply the River Tyne was in good condition then. |
| D．To praise their contributions to the Industrial Revolution. |
| A．Waterfront apartments have been torn down. |
| B．Amusement parks have sprung up along urban rivers. |
| C．Riverside storehouses have served as places of leisure. |
| D．Waterways have been filled with emissions and abandoned ships. |
| A．Use barges to make deliveries. |
| B．Lay off truck drivers gradually. |
| C．Decrease working time from home. |
| D．Speed up smart urban traffic management. |
