2 . Wildfires lit by humans have been found to be sending huge amounts of carbon into our oceans via rivers every year.

When trees and other vegetation are incompletely burned, they release black carbon into the air, which can last for centuries on land and even longer in oceans. Now we have the best global picture of how much of the stuff is making its way to the sea: around a third of all the black carbon produced by fires.

Unlike the two-thirds that stays on the land, the carbon ending up in the oceans will stay there much longer, says Matthew Jones at the University of East Anglia in the UK. “Once it reaches the oceans, it has potential for storage over tens of thousands of years. That’s why we care about it. It’s almost locked up for the distant future,” he says.

Jones and his colleagues looked at 409 measurements of black carbon dissolved in the waters of 34 major rivers globally, plus many smaller rivers, including far more data from the tropics. They then modeled how it would travel to the oceans. “It’s quite breathtaking how long-lived this material is and how much ends up in the environment,” says Jones.

The team found that the amount of black carbon being carried by rivers varies generally around the world, with the rivers in the tropics carrying twice what those in cooler regions do.

When compared with emissions from humanity’s fossil fuel use, the actual amount reaching the oceans is relatively small. However, says Jones, understanding how black carbon is being moved around is important for building better climate models and for our understanding of the global carbon cycle.

The amount being produced by fires has been relatively stable for the past two decades, with forest fires being offset by Savannah being turned into farmland, which reduces the amount of vegetation available to burn. But Jones points out that more fires are expected as the world warms, which will deliver more black carbon into the oceans.

1. What happens to the black carbon produced by forest fires?

A．One third will turn into fires.	B．It will disappear in few years.
C．The ocean covers two-thirds of its total.	D．It has more lasting storage underwater.

2. What can we learn from Paragraphs 4 and 5?

A．The research deals with 409 rivers in all.

B．Black carbon finally ends up in the ocean by rivers.

C．The research focuses on different varieties of black carbon.

D．The rivers in the tropics have less black carbon due to temperature.

3. What does Jones agree with?

A．Better climate models will be built soon.

B．The carbon produced by humans is small.

C．The amount of carbon produced by forest fire is falling.

D．The amount of carbon reaching the ocean won’t be reduced.

4. In which column of a newspaper can we read the passage?

A．Environment.

B．Science.

C．Entertainment.

D．Health.

5 . 假定你是李华，你对近年来的严重雾霾深有感触，认为绿色生活方式对于改善空气质量十分有益。请根据下列要点写一篇短文，向校刊“英语角”栏目投稿。提出具体措施，注意用词，使行文连贯，字数100左右。
1. 简述雾霾情况;
2. 倡导绿色生活;
3. 提出具体措施
注意：
1. 词数100左右;
2. 可以适当增加细节,以使行文连贯。

Green Life, Clearer Air

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6 . Plastics are amazing materials, which are widely used in our daily life. Besides, they’re often cheap to make. About 8. 3 billion metric tons of plastic have been produced to date. That’s about 1,400 times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Some of that plastic is still in use. But about 5. 8 billion metric tons have been thrown away.

All that plastic waste is an environmental scourge (祸根). Only about 9 percent of plastic waste has been recycled. Another 12 percent has been burned. The remaining 79 percent wound up in landfills or in nature. And that plastic, like a single Lego block, takes a long time to decompose (分解).

Plastic litters the world from the highest mountaintop to the deepest seafloor. Many animals mistake this rubbish for food. If they get full, these animals may forget to eat real food and suffer. Plastic rubbish in the oceans also leaves birds, turtles and other wildlife in a jam.

Big pieces of plastic aren’t the only problem. Abandoned plastic can break into tiny bits called microplastics. Winds blow these bits far and wide. Ocean currents can spread them throughout the sea. These pollutants build up inside animals. They also get into our food and drinking water. Each American is likely to consume more than 70, 000 microplastic pieces per year. Right now, no one knows what risk that might bring.

Scientists have some ideas about how to clean up this mess. The Ocean Cleanup is developing cleanup systems to fish out plastic pieces from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Microbes or mealworms with an appetite for plastic might someday eat the garbage. And new nanotechnology (纳米技术) could help microplastics decompose in the environment. But many of these plans are still far from effective so far. The best way to help Earth right now is to stop buying so much plastic — and then throwing it out — in the first place.

1. What does the Lego block show about plastic waste?

A．It is hard to break down.	B．Little of it has been burned.
C．It is easy to pile up.	D．Most of it ends up in landfills.

2. How might the plastic rubbish influence animals?

A．By starving them.	B．By reducing their food.
C．By piling up in their homes.	D．By changing the environment.

3. What is the author’s attitude to the present methods of cleaning plastic waste?

A．Opposed.

B．Supportive.

C．Indifferent.

D．Doubtful.

4. Why does the author write the text?

A．To criticize plastic production.	B．To suggest ways to handle plastic.
C．To advocate environmental protection.	D．To introduce the state of plastic pollution.

9 . The effects of noise can reach organisms (生物体) without ears. Because of the way living things rely on each other, noise pollution may actually stop some forests from growing, a new study suggests. In a New Mexico woodland of pine trees, researchers found far fewer tree seedlings (小苗) in noisy sites than they did in quiet ones.

The study area is dotted with gas wells, some of which are quiet and some of which have compressors (压缩机) that create a constant noise. This allowed Jennifer Phillips, a behavioral ecologist at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and her colleagues to compare sites that were similar except for noise level. In areas that had been noisy for at least 15 years, the researchers found only about 13 pine seedlings, compared with 55 pine seedlings per hectare (公顷) in quiet areas.

The differences in plant growth were probably caused by changes in animal behavior, said Phillips. For example, noise might drive away certain pollinators (传粉昆虫) such as bees, bats and moths. In the case of pine trees, the problem was likely a lack of animals to disperse seeds. Pines depend on birds to carry their seeds away from the parent tree, and birds are known to avoid noise. The differences between the sites aren’t yet obvious to someone walking through them, said Sarah Termondt, a botanist (植物学家) with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who helped conduct the study. That’s probably because pines are slow-growing, with most of the mature trees in such woodlands being over a century old.

The study raises questions about the future of the area. “If the noise stays there long term, are we going to lose this important ecosystem of the pine which supports so much wildlife?” said Phillips. The study was published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

1. What does the new study focus on?

A．The influence of noise pollution on plants.

B．The way the organisms receive noise.

C．The harm of noise pollution to insects.

D．The effects of noise pollution on humans .

2. What can be learned from paragraph 2 and 3?

A．Gas wells dotted in the area provide favorable conditions for the study.

B．The study sites are different in many ways including their noise level.

C．It is difficult for plants to live without noise and animals.

D．People can easily find the difference between the noisy and the quiet sites.

3. What does the underlined word “mature” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Seedling.	B．Thin.
C．Grown-up.	D．Tall.

4. What does Phillips mean by saying the words in the last paragraph?

A．Noise pollution is obviously a trouble that can be avoided.

B．Noise pollution could be a threat with the power to change ecosystems.

C．The pine forest is important because it supports so much wildlife.

D．Wildlife should be well protected for the future of this area.

10 . 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