1 . Plastic straws (吸管) have been a major problem in global discussions of environmental damage. Maybe because of their small size, the production cost of straws is low. In many countries, straws are offered freely after buying soft drinks. Therefore, plastic straws are one of the most used plastics and pollutants in the world.
The plastic straw is light and small. Due to their small size, plastic straws are often eaten by sea animals. Environmentalists have shown that the death of many sea animals is caused by eating plastic straws. The other damaging characteristic of plastic straws is that they are made of materials which cannot degrade. That means the materials cannot be changed into small harmless ones.
The most effective way of dealing with the environmental pollution caused by plastic straws is the reuse or banning (禁止) the use of plastic straws. Being plastics, the straws can be made into new items. Many organizations around the world change used straws into new products. In Africa, local communities collect used plastic straws and use them to make mats and bags. Another way of dealing with environmental pollution caused by plastic straws is placing a ban on their production and use. Experts advise governments to ban using plastic straws to save the environment. A few countries in the world, such as Rwanda, Macedonia, China, Kenya, have already banned the use of plastic bags and are expected to include plastic straws to save the environment. A few countries in the world, such as Rwanda, Macedonia, China, Kenya, have already banned the use of plastic bags and are expected to include plastic straws and bottles. But it will be a long way to do this effectively.
There are few environmentally friendly and biodegradable products to take the place of plastic straws. These products include paper straws and bamboo straws. However, such straws are usually expensive as their production cost is high. It’s still a question whether they can entirely take the place of plastic straws.
1. Why can people be free to use plastic straws?| A．They are very cheap. | B．They are light and small. |
| C．They are dangerous. | D．They are easy to use. |
| A．Cut up. | B．Break down. | C．Burn up. | D．Go by. |
| A．It’s not difficult to ban using plastic straws. |
| B．Many countries have stopped using plastic straws. |
| C．Experts advise people to stop producing plastic straws. |
| D．Some Africans change plastic straws into new products. |
| A．It is a must to use them. |
| B．It’s not easy to reuse them. |
| C．There are still some problems to be solved. |
| D．There are some other kinds of cheaper straws. |
2 . Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but has brought new peoplems. One of the biggest is pollution. Pollution come in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.
Men have been polluting the earth. Many years ago, the pollution 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, men moved to another place.
Air pollution is now the most serious. Air makes people sick. And lots of people now are trying to use something to clear the air. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us become angry more easily.
Many countries are making rules to fight air 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. It is true that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.
Although most of the pollution is caused by us, we are the ones who can change the situation. The earth is our home. We must take care of it. And we must pay more attention to the information in pollution at the same time.
1. Why was the pollution in the past less serious?| A．Because life in the past was easier. | B．Because there were not so many people. |
| C．Because men stayed in one place. | D．Because people used less coal to make fire. |
| A．Air pollution. | B．Noise poliution. | C．Light pollution. | D．Water pollution. |
| A．Try to use something to clear the air | B．Ask people to use public transport more. |
| C．Stop putting dirty smoke into the air. | D．Encourage people to move to another place |
| A．Because there are so many factories. |
| B．Because the global warming is becoming worse and worse. |
| C．Because carbon dioxide emissions are increasing. |
| D．Because there is heavy traffic. |
| A．To prove life is much easier today. | B．To call on us to take care of our earth. |
| C．To show the danger of pollution. | D．To introduce how to fight air pollution. |
3 . In the old days, when you had to drive to a movie theater or to a video store to get some entertainment, it was easy to see how your actions could have an impact on the environment. You were hopping into your car, driving across town, and using gas all the way.
But now that we’re used to staying at home and streaming movies, we might feel better about ourselves. After all, we’re just picking up our phones or maybe turning on the TV. You’re welcome, Mother Nature.
“Not so fast,” says a recent report from the French-based Shift Project. Watching a half-hour show would lead to 3.5 pounds of CO₂ emissions. That’s like driving 3.9 miles. According to “Climate Crisis: The Unsustainable Use of Online Video,” digital technologies are responsible for 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, and that energy use is increasing by 9% a year. Stored in data centers, videos are transferred to our terminals such as computers, smart phones, etc. via networks: all these processes require electricity whose production consumes resources and usually involves CO₂ emissions.
In the European Union, the Eureca project lead scientist, Rabih Bashroush, calculated that 5 billion downloads and streams of the song “Despacito” consumed as much electricity as the countries of Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic used in a single year.
Streaming is only expected to increase as we become more attached to our devices. Online video use is expected to account for 80% of all internet traffic in five years according to CISCO. By then, about 60% of the world’s population will be online.
You’re probubly not going to give up your streaming services, but there are things you can do to help lessen the impact of your online use.
Here are some tips:
Disable autoplay for video on social media.
Stream over Wi-Fi, not mobile networks.
Watch on the smallest screen you can.
Don’t use high-definition (高清) video on devices.
1. It can be inferred from Paragraph 2 that people think ______.| A．they should welcome Mother Nature |
| B．streaming at home avoids possible emissions |
| C．it is inconvenient to drive to a movie theater |
| D．watching movies at home is more fun |
| A．60% of the world’s population watch videos online |
| B．digital technologies account for 4% of electricity use |
| C．online video use makes up 80% of all internet traffic |
| D．30 minutes of streaming video may produce 3.5 pounds of CO₂ |
| A．To praise their energy-efficient practice. |
| B．To prove the poverty of the five countries |
| C．To stress the popularity of the song “Despacito” |
| D．To show the high energy use of downloads and streams |
| A．Use high-definition videos. | B．Turn off video autoplay |
| C．Stream over mobile networks. | D．Watch movies on bigger screens. |
4 . August 24, 2023 may be imprinted in history as the day of disaster for the marine environment. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has asked Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, to release nuclear wastewater into the ocean from Thursday, ignoring strong objections from both home and abroad.
It will be a public crime if the discharge goes through and the decision will prove to be extremely unrewarding. The international community can hold Japan accountable indefinitely.
According to Paris-based French TV network France 24, some 1.34 million tonnes of nuclear wastewater, equivalent to almost the water in 540 Olympic pools, will be released into the ocean off Japan’s northeast coast, at a maximum rate of 500 cubic meters per day. The whole process is expected to take 30 to 40 years and cost around eight trillion yen (55 billion USD).
Junichi Matsumoto, the TEPCO executive in charge of the water release, told the Associated Press in July that the company plans to release 7,800 tonnes of treated water for 17 days in the first round. By the end of March 2024, the aim is to release 31,200 tonnes. The pace is expected to pick up later.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong asked the Japanese ambassador to China Hideo Tarumi on August 22 to meet him and make serious representations over the Japanese government’s announcement that it would start releasing nuclear-contaminated water on August 24.
Sun said the Fukushima nuclear accident is one of the world’s most serious nuclear accidents to date, resulting in the release of a large amount of radioactive material, which has far-reaching implications for the marine environment, food safety, and human health.
“The ocean is the blue home that all humanity depends on for survival, and the Japanese side should not dump nuclear-contaminated water at will,” Sun said.
1. Who did Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ask to release nuclear wastewater into the ocean?| A．Spokesperson Wang Wenbin. |
| B．The TEPCO executive Junichi Matsumoto. |
| C．Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong. |
| D．The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. |
| A．1.34 million tonnes. | B．7,800 tonnes. | C．2,3400 tonnes. | D．31,200 tonnes. |
| A．It has no implications for the marine environment. |
| B．Has no implications for food safety and human health. |
| C．It is one of the most serious nuclear accidents in history. |
| D．It resulted in the release of a small amount of radioactive material. |
| A．A research paper. | B．A newspaper report. |
| C．A business report. | D．A geography textbook. |
5 . The world itself is becoming much smaller by using modern traffic and modern communication means. Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution. To pollute means to make things dirty. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.
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. Hundreds of years ago, life was ________ it is today.| A．much easier than | B．as easy as | C．much harder than | D．as hard as |
| 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．stopping people from burning coal. |
| B．stopping people from pouring dirty water into the ocean. |
| C．stopping people from moving to other places. |
| D．stopping people from putting dirty smoke in the air. |
| 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. |
6 . For centuries, historians and archaeologists have defined periods of human history by the technologies or materials that made the greatest impact on society — like the Stone Age, Bronze Age, or Iron Age. But what age are we in now? For some researchers, according to Atlas Obscura’s Cara Giamo, that question can be answered with one word: plastics.
“Plastic has redefined our material culture and the artifacts we leave behind. It will be found in stratified (分层) layers in our trash deposits (沉积层)” That’s according to archaeologist John Marston.
The wide variety of synthetic polymers (合成聚合物) would not exist if it weren’t for human action. Since the first plastic polymers were invented, about six billion tons of plastics have been made and spread around the planet, from forests to oceans ever since the first plastics polymers were invented.
Plastics are one of the most significant changes that humans have made to the Earth’s makeup. Most plastics don’t easily degrade. This only adds to the problem. Recycling isn’t an adequate solution. Not all types of plastic are easily recyclable. And there are only a few recycling plants that can process all varieties of plastic.
According to Debra Winter, writer for The Atlantic, this means that many of the materials thrown into recycling bins can cross the planet several times before they are processed. They are made into produce rugs, sweaters, or other bottles. Although millions of tons of plastic are recycled every year, millions more end up in landfills or the ocean. The problem has reached the point where it’s possible that in just a few decades there might be more plastic in the world’s oceans than fishes.
“Plastics have a supposed life span of over 500 years, it’s safe to say that every plastic bottle you have used exists somewhere on this planet, in some form or another,” Winter writes.
The damage may already be done. It may be too late for human populations worldwide to change their plastic-using ways. So the Plastic Age might soon take its place next to the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the history of human civilization.
1. Why do people call our age the Plastic Age?| A．Because plastics are not naturally made. | B．Because humans create plastics. |
| C．Because plastics influence the world greatly. | D．Because historians and archaeologists think so. |
| A．They are recycled | B．They are degraded |
| C．They are thrown away | D．They are made into bottles |
| A．Human beings are in the Plastic Age | B．Plastics have ruined our environment |
| C．We must stop using plastics altogether | D．Plastics are significant to human development |
7 . As newer, more advanced technologies come out, huge amounts of electronics (电子产品) are thrown away, instead of being reused. These goods often end up in landfills, where the chemicals inside them may be a danger to the environment. Electronics can contain harmful materials. If these materials get into the ground or water, the pollution can cause serious problems. Most electronics require metals. These metals must be mined from the Earth. Often the mining process creates serious pollution.
A group known as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum is trying to make people more aware of the problems of e-waste. Recently, the WEEE Forum asked researchers from the United Nations (UN) to study a kind of e-waste that’s often not noticed because people don’t consider the goods to be electronics. The WEEE Forum calls this kind “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste.
The UN study shows that about 1/6 of all e-waste is “unable-to-be-seen”. Though it’s “unable-to-be-seen”, it’s certainly not a small amount. The “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste weighs about 9 billion kilograms. The WEEE Forum says that if this e-waste were put into 40-ton trucks and the trucks were then lined up, the line of trucks would be about 5,630 kilometers long.
The surprising kind leading the “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste group was toys. Worldwide, roughly 7.3 billion electronic toys are thrown away each year. These include goods like car racing sets, electric trains, and musical toys. They also include toys with electronic parts, like dolls that speak or games with electronic timers. In all, toys make up about 35% of “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste. But the problem is far larger than just toys. The report also shows that other everyday goods like home alarms, smoke alarms, power tools, and computer cables (电缆) are also big sources of “unable-to-be-seen” e-waste.
The WEEE Forum is hoping that as more people and governments become aware of e-waste, they will make a much greater effort to make sure electronics get reused.
1. What is paragraph 1 mainly about?| A．The amount of electronics. | B．The development of electronics. |
| C．The ways of reusing electronics. | D．The pollution of electronics. |
| A．People’s interest in electronics’ character. |
| B．People’s impression on electronics’ package. |
| C．People’s misunderstanding of electronics. |
| D．People’s struggle to adapt to electronics. |
| A．By showing numbers. | B．By providing examples. |
| C．By making a summary. | D．By making a comparison, |
| A．Designing advanced electronics. | B．Making electronics get reused. |
| C．Stopping giving away electronics. | D．Reducing electronics’ production. |
8 . Carried by the wind, dust particles (微粒) from places such as the Sahara Desert can float halfway around the world before settling to the ground. As the plastics abandoned by humans break down into tiny pieces in the environment, they, too, travel through the atmosphere. Now scientists are a step closer to understanding how these microplastics travel in the globe — both locally and on long-distance flights.
Researchers spent more than a year collecting microplastics from 11 national parks and wilderness areas in the western U.S. They examined the particles that settled on dry days and those that fell along with rain or snow. In addition to making clear how microplastics move around, the results, published on Thursday in Science, reveal the seriousness of the problem: more than 1 million kilograms of microplastics — the weight of 120 million to 300 million plastic water bottles — fall on protected lands in the country’s western region each year.
The new findings add to scientists’ concern over microplastic pollution’s potential impacts on the environment and human health. “We’re not supposed to breathe in this material,” says Steve Allen, a microplastics researcher at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, who was not involved in the new study. “Plastics in the environment “carry all sorts of pesticides (农药), heavy metals and all the other chemicals that we’ve made over time,” he adds. “They’re going to carry them directly into our lungs.”
Since their discovery in oceans in the 1970s, microplastics — which can be as large as a grain of rice or smaller than a particle of dust — have been found nearly everywhere researchers have looked: in cities, in Arctic snow, on remote mountaintops. Their presence in areas distant from the place where human live has pointed to them being carried by winds.
1. What do the scientists further understand now?| A．Why Sahara Desert is expanding to the south of Africa. |
| B．How plastic particles travel on the wind. |
| C．Why it is hard for plastics to break down. |
| D．How dust particles are spreading through the wind. |
| A．The results showed the amount of microplastics is huge. |
| B．Researchers collected microplastics across the U.S. |
| C．Researchers focused on plastic particles in dry days. |
| D．Numerous plastic water bottles were found each year. |
| A．They should be recycled. | B．They do harm to weather. |
| C．They can be used to make all sorts of pesticides. | D．They carry harmful chemicals to human lungs. |
| A．Dust Particles Is Harmful to Our Lungs | B．The Environment Is Threatened by Plastics |
| C．Microplastics Are Falling from the Sky | D．Microplastics Do Harm to Health |
9 . We often hear about how air pollution is changing earth temperatures. New evidence from a mountaintop in China now suggests that pollution can also change the amount of rain and snow falling in some places.
Usually, more precipitation ( 降水量) falls in mountainous places than in flat areas upwind (逆风的) from the mountains. In recent years, however, many mountainous areas in the USA have been getting 25 percent less precipitation than normal. Mountains that are downwind of cities have experienced the biggest drops.
Some British scientists have theorized that pollution moves from the cities into the mountains, affecting rainfall. To get answers, scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (耶路撒冷) turned to a mountain in China called Mount Hua. The mountain is 2, 060 metres tall and lies about 120 kilometers east of the Chinese city of Xi’an. Since 1954, meteorologists (气象学家) have been collecting details about rainfall, humidity, and visibility (能见度) in the area. Scientists compared rainfall on Mount Hua with rainfall in the nearest city, Huayin, on days with varying levels of visibility using these data. When the air was clear and people could see 20 km away, the scientists found that 65 percent more rain fell on the mountain than in the city. But when smoggy, allowing only 8 km of visibility through the haze (薄雾), the mountain received just 20 percent more rain than the city did. The new data support the theory.
Some scientists believe that there are other explanations for the numbers. For example, some believe that naturally occurring particles (颗粒) in the air rather than particles produced by pollution are affecting visibility. This is the first study to observe a connection between rainfall and changes in visibility due to air pollution. However, more studies are needed to confirm the link.
1. The scientists carrying out the study on Mount Hua are most probably from ．| A．China | B．the USA | C．Israel (以色列) | D．Britain |
| A．the population there |
| B．the amount of rainfall |
| C．the humidity |
| D．the visibility |
| A．scientists haven’t paid enough attention to weather changes |
| B．not all scientists believe that there is a connection between visibility and rainfall |
| C．the low visibility must be caused by the heavy air pollution |
| D．air pollution may not be the only reason for the change of the visibility |
| A．The factors affecting the amount of rainfall. |
| B．The effect of air pollution on earth temperatures. |
| C．A weather study carried out on a mountain in China. |
| D．Air pollution reducing precipitation. |
10 . According to a new study, human noise is a “major global pollutant” that harms a wider range of animal life than we tend to think. Published in the journal Biology Letters, the study suggests noise pollution not only harms lots of animals, but also threatens the survival of more than 100 different species.
Lots of species rely on sound for communication, for example, including many amphibians, birds, insects and mammals which use sound for vital business like finding mates or warning about predators (捕猎者). If noise pollution drowns out enough of these messages. it can threaten survival and the stability of their populations.
On the other hand, noise pollution can make it harder for some predators to find food Bats and owls rely on sound to hunt, for instance, which may not work if noise pollution drowns out the sounds of their prey like insects and mice. Even if noise pollution is mild, it might still force them to spend more time and energy searching for food, which could be enough to cause a decline.
Noise pollution is a well-known risk for whales and dolphins, but it threatens other sea animals, too. The researchers cite fish larvae, which are easily drawn to the sounds of coral reefs (珊瑚礁). This is how they find suitable habitats, but if their journey features too much noise from ships and other human sources, more fish larvae may get lost or move into wrong reefs, potentially reducing their lifespan.
Similarly, noise pollution influences the way animals migrate (迁徙), which in turn can have chain effects for ecosystems along migration routes. Some migrating birds avoid areas with noise pollution, the researchers note, which may change not only where they travel, but also where they establish long-term homes and raise their young. Many ecosystems and non-migrating species have come to depend on the arrival of migrating birds, and many others may be unprepared for their sudden absence, so this could cause a series of ecological changes.
“Noise must be considered as a global pollutant and we need to develop strategies to protect animals from noise for their livelihoods,” says Kunc, the lead author of the study.
1. What is the new study mainly about?| A．The sources of noise pollution. | B．The dangers of noise pollution to animals. |
| C．Why people should lower noise levels. | D．How animals deal with noise pollution. |
| A．They are very sensitive to sound. | B．Their hunting abilities are weakening. |
| C．They are easily attracted by sounds. | D．Their populations are sharply declining. |
| A．They may abandon their young. | B．They may give up their migration. |
| C．They may change their migration routes. | D．They may develop new eating habits. |
| A．Measures must be taken to reduce noise pollution. |
| B．Noise pollution affects the way animals reproduce. |
| C．Migrating animals will die out due to noise pollution. |
| D．Nature reserves should be built to stop the loss of habitats. |
