1 . The Great Wall, China
Stretching over 21,000 kilometers, the Great Wall was built to prevent invasions and has a history of more than 2,000 years. UNESCO in February 2019 calls it an absolute masterpiece, not only because of the ambitious character of the undertaking but also the perfection of its construction.”
But perfection isn’t protection. 51.2 percent of the Great Wall had either already disappeared or is at a significant risk of disappearing. Besides for wind and rain erosion, the main reasons for the destruction of the Great Wall are human factors such as tourism, construction, human contact and so on.
Pamukkale，Turkey
Pamukkale, which means “cotton castle” in Turkish, is famous for its shining white calcite terraces (方解石阶地)with warm and mineral-rich waters overrun.
Before being listed as a World Heritage Site in 1988, Pamukkale had been severely damaged by human activities. People used hot spring water to fill swimming pools, some visitors stood on the rocks and some even bathed in the hot springs with soap and shampoo. To protect the terraces, the Turkish government has decided to pull down the hotels and require all tourists to visit this site barefoot.
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Home to 400 types of coral and 1,500 species of fish, the Great Barrier Reef draws visitors to Australia from all over the world.
However, the Great Barrier Reef is expected to suffer from increasingly frequent bleaching events, cases in which corals turn white and may die, according to a UNESCO report. The heat waves caused by global warming have killed half of the coral here in the two years, according to a CNN report. Pollution from industry developments and harmful fishing practices are also big concerns.
The Dead Sea, Jordan
At 423 meters below sea level, the Dead Sea is 10 times saltier than the ocean, meaning that the water is so dense, even tourists who can9t swim will be able to float.
But the seaside resorts built in the 1980s now sit kilometers away from the water’s edge, which has lost half of its surface area in the past 40 years. The damage is irreversible due to the nature of the mineral industry and the type of agricultural use that has drained the water.
1. Which are you required to visit without shoes?| A．The Great Wall, China. |
| B．Pamukkale, Turkey. |
| C．Great Barrier Reef, Australia. |
| D．The Dead Sea, Jordan. |
| A．Main reasons for the destruction of the Great Wall come from wind and rain erosion. |
| B．Pamukkale was damaged by human activities after 1988. |
| C．Pollution and the heat waves caused by global warming kill much coral in the Great Barrier Reef. |
| D．Half of the Dead Sea surface area has disappeared in the past two decades. |
| A．They are all famous endangered natural spots. |
| B．They’re damaged only from human activities. |
| C．They all draw the attention of the governments. |
| D．They’re all seriously damaged. |
2 . Drive through any suburb in the US today, and it’s hard to miss the bins that have become companions to America’s trash cans. Recycling has become commonplace, as people recognize the need to care for the environment. Yet most people’s recycling consciousness extends only as far as paper, bottles, and cans. People seldom find themselves facing the growing problem of e-waste.
E-waste rapidly increases as the techno-fashionable frequently upgrade to the most advanced device and the majority of them end up in landfills(垃圾填埋地). Some people who track such waste say that users throw away nearly 2 million tons of TVs, VCRs, computers, cell phones, and other electronics every day. Unless we can find a safe replacement, this e-waste may get into the ground and poison the water with dangerous toxins(毒素), such as lead, mercury, and arsenic. Burning the waste also dangerously contaminates the air.
However, e-waste often contains reusable silver, gold, and other electrical materials. Recycling these materials reduces environmental problems by reducing both landfill waste and the need to look for such metals, which can destroy ecosystems.
A growing number of states have adopted laws to ban dumping(倾倒)e-waste. Still, less than a quarter of this waste will reach lawful recycling programs. Some companies advertising safe disposal(处置)in fact merely ship the waste to some developing countries, where it still ends up in landfills. These organizations prevent progress by unsafely disposing of waste in an out-of-sight, out-of-mind location.
However, the small but growing number of cities and corporations that do handle e-waste responsibly represents progress toward making the world a cleaner, better place for us all.
1. What can we infer from the first paragraph?| A．Most of America’s trash cans are made of recycled material. |
| B．E-waste cannot be put into trash cans in the US. |
| C．Most Americans have realized the dangers of e-waste. |
| D．Many Americans now have access to recycling bins. |
| A．reduce. | B．heat. | C．absorb. | D．pollute. |
| A．Progress is being made in handling e-waste. |
| B．A growing number of states ship the e-waste to developing countries. |
| C．A large number of cities have begun to handle e-waste responsibly. |
| D．The world will become cleaner by disposing of waste in an out-of-sight location. |
| A．To tell us how to recycle e-waste. |
| B．To talk about the future of e-waste. |
| C．To encourage us to deal with e-waste properly, |
| D．To discuss if it’s necessary to recycle e-waste. |
3 . Masses of ocean plastic are providing artificial habitat (栖息地) for otherwise coastal species, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. The study’s authors observed floating water bottles, old toothbrushes and waste fishing nets. The possibility exists that species may be evolving to better adapt to life on plastic.
A decade ago, marine researchers believed coastal species could not survive a trip across the inhospitable open ocean. Yet Japan’s 2011 tsunami (海啸), which sent some 300 species of Asian marine life riding floating plastic garbage onto North American shores, disproved that assumption.
Ocean plastic is “creating opportunities for coastal species’ biogeography to greatly expand beyond what we previously thought was possible”, Linsey Haram, a researcher and co-author of the study, said in a report.
The concept of species-covered plastic may sound like the story of ocean species’ victory in spite of human pollution. But that’s not quite the case, explains Juan José Alava, PhD, an expert at the University of British Columbia. In addition to transporting non-native species to new habitats where they may become invasive and destructive, the plastic is “basically an ecological trap”, says Alava. “That’s because small species on the floating structure may attract bigger animals to come for food. When these creatures enter garbage areas for food, they run a high risk of eating and/or becoming caught in plastic and dying.”
While scientists have found some types of bacteria (细菌) are able to break down plastic, thereby cleaning up garbage, it’s unlikely that the marine animals will have any such effect. “The 2021 UN report was clear that the increasing plastic pollution is putting the health of all the world’s oceans and seas at risk,” says Alava.
1. What does the underlined word “inhospitable” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Easy-to-spot. | B．Up-to-standard. |
| C．Down-to-earth. | D．Hard-to-stay. |
| A．Putting them at greater risk. |
| B．Causing them to grow bigger. |
| C．Enabling them to live in new habitats. |
| D．Freeing them from getting endangered. |
| A．It increases some creatures’ curiosity. |
| B．It causes damage to all marine species. |
| C．It creates habitats for larger creatures. |
| D．It leads to the death of some creatures. |
| A．Ocean plastic must be dealt with. |
| B．It’s OK to throw plastic into the ocean. |
| C．Marine life may adapt to ocean plastic. |
| D．Ocean plastic may be cleaned up soon. |
4 . In the deepest dive in a manned submersible(潜水器), US explorer Victor Vescovo spotted and video-recorded a plastic bag and a pile of candy wrappers on the seabed.
His
Since the patent(专利) for plastics was
Most of the discarded(丢弃) plastic products
Every year, about 8 million tons of plastic waste flow into the ocean. It is
This plastic waste
We must do something to
But that’s so much
| A．report | B．discovery | C．record | D．accumulation |
| A．everywhere | B．anywhere | C．somewhere | D．nowhere |
| A．as | B．although | C．but | D．so |
| A．abolished | B．acquired | C．registered | D．advertised |
| A．with | B．without | C．off | D．above |
| A．end up | B．wake up | C．grow up | D．walk up |
| A．continent | B．park | C．island | D．garden |
| A．suggested | B．estimated | C．weighed | D．congratulated |
| A．thousand | B．hundred | C．million | D．billion |
| A．feeds | B．saves | C．cares | D．kills |
| A．looking | B．winding | C．floating | D．jumping |
| A．earth | B．air | C．water | D．environment |
| A．pollution | B．existence | C．temperature | D．cycle |
| A．production | B．supply | C．pyramid | D．trade |
| A．change | B．clean | C．satisfy | D．realize |
| A．otherwise | B．instead | C．therefore | D．meanwhile |
| A．exercise | B．activity | C．fact | D．habit |
| A．harder | B．more effective | C．more courageous | D．easier |
| A．calling for | B．looking for | C．sending for | D．waiting for |
| A．start | B．refuse | C．continue | D．hope |
5 . The garment (服装) industry is one of the largest carbon polluters on planet Earth, and one of the greatest producers of waste. Three out of five of the 100 billion garments made in 2018 ended up in landfill within a year. Toxic chemicals land in the environment and worker communities, and the production of cotton uses up vast amounts of water.
The business model of fast fashion has led to an enormous increase in the amounts of clothes that are produced, sold, and thrown. According to McKinsey, clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2014, and the average consumer buys 60% more garments each year. At the same time, these clothes are kept only half as long as they were a mere fifteen years ago.
About 100 billion items of clothing are produced each year; that’s nearly 14 items for every human being on the planet. Some of those never even reach the consumers; it caused a minor anger when in 2018 a luxury brand admitted to burning clothes just to protect the brand.
Yet, with clothes being so cheap, people do not wear at least 50 percent of their wardrobes, according to this study. The clothing and footwear industries together account for more than 8 percent of global climate influence, greater than all international airline flights and oceanic shipping trips combined. Water usage for growing cotton has led to huge lack of water, and coloring and treatment of garments make up 17%—20% of all industrial water pollution.
An industry that makes billions on the use of the planet does not suddenly become more sustainable (可持续的) when they start using organic cotton, or start burning their unsold goods (remember—people worked really hard for very little money on those clothes!) as a green fuel…
1. What does the underlined word “Toxic” mean in paragraph 1?| A．Colorful. | B．Enormous. | C．Beneficial. | D．Poisonous. |
| A．The new model clothing change too slowly. |
| B．Some luxury clothes are cheap. |
| C．There are more new clothes every year. |
| D．They want to make full use of green fuel. |
| A．Fishing. | B．Climate. | C．Transport. | D．Agriculture. |
| A．Clothing waste. | B．Sources of pollution. |
| C．The garment industry. | D．Effects of environmental pollution. |
When travelling overseas, do you buy water in plastic bottles or take your chances with tap water? Imagine you are wandering about on a Thai island or
That’s the conclusion of a recently
Confronted with this evidence, several bottled-water manufacturers including Nestle and Coca-Cola undertook
7 . The amount of plastic pollution in the oceans is rapidly increasing. This is problematic, as at least 700 species of sea animals — including sharks, whales seabirds and turtles — can be trapped in the stuff or mistake it for a tasty snack. While we know that some species seem to eat plastic because it looks like jellyfish or some other food source, less research has been carried out into what sea plastic smells like to sea animals.
But now, a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found that the coating of algae and microbes (藻类、微生物) that naturally builds up on ocean plastics causes the rubbish to give off the smell of food.
The researchers took 15 healthy turtles, each around five months old and placed them in a laboratory aquarium (水族箱). They then piped in clean water, clean plastic, turtle food, and plastic that had been down in the sea environment for five weeks. The turtles showed no reaction to the smell of clean water or clean plastic. But when they were exposed to the smells of ocean plastic or turtle food, they exhibited hunting behaviour — like sticking their noses out of the water and showing increased activity.
“This finding is important because it’s the first demonstration that the smell of ocean plastics causes animals to eat them,” said Dr Kenneth J Lohmann, who took part in the study.
“It’s common to find the sea turtles with their digestive systems fully or partially blocked because they’ve eaten plastic materials There also are increasing reports of sea turtles that have been ill and stranded on the beach due to their swallow of plastic.”
“Once these plastics are in the ocean we don’t have a good way to remove them or prevent them from smelling like food” said Lohmann. “The best thing we can do is to keep plastic from getting into the ocean at all.”
1. What does the new research mainly focus on?| A．What has caused the sea plastic pollution. |
| B．What sea plastic smells like to sea animals. |
| C．How dangerous the sea environment is. |
| D．How dangerous the sea plastic pollution is. |
| A．The turtles of 5 months old are the most healthy ones. |
| B．The turtles prefer dirty environments to clean ones. |
| C．The clean plastic has no certain smell to attract turtles. |
| D．The clean plastic is more dangerous than the ocean plastic. |
| A．trapped | B．rescued | C．harmed | D．treated |
| A．Sea turtles and sea environment | B．Sea turtles and their enemies |
| C．Sea turtles and sea food chain | D．Sea turtles and sea plastics |
8 . There is an “environmental silver lining” as a result of the corona virus (冠状病毒) —carbon emissions have been reduced by more than 4%, many wildlife markets around the world have been closed and air quality in some places has slightly improved, Dave Ford, founder of the environmental literacy organization Soul Buffalo, says.
However, because of an increase in pandemic-related, non-recyclable materials such as take-out plastic containers and masks, 30% more waste has entered our oceans, he notes. “There's 129 billion facemasks being made every month—enough that you could cover the entire country of Switzerland with facemasks at the end of this year if trends continue,” he says. “And a lot of these masks are ending up in the water.” The masks look like jellyfish—in other words, food—to turtles and other wildlife creatures, thus, attractive to those animals and then endangering them, he says.
Very little of the plastic we use is actually recyclable. Sharon Lerner of The Intercept told Here & Now last year that "the vast majority of plastic that has ever been produced—79%—has actually ended up in landfills or burned, but not remade into new products." Even if the plastics we have can be reused, Ford says recycling programs across the globe are facing severe budget cuts.
“We're starting to see recycling programs stopped, waste picking communities operating at 50% or actually shutting down. They are the last line of defense between plastic and the environment,” he says.
Last year, Unilever planned to cut its use of non-recycled plastics in half by 2025. In an interview with Here & Now, Richard Slater, Unilever's chief research and development officer, drew on the industry argument that plastic packaging is lighter, which means less shipping and therefore fewer dangerous emissions that cause climate change.
Yes, plastics are lightweight and can cut down on fuel spending. But on the other hand, plastic waste is being found in every aspect of life—even in the deepest ocean.
1. What does “environmental silver lining” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．An environmental organization. |
| B．The closure of some wildlife markets. |
| C．Benefits on environment from the corona virus. |
| D．The decrease of carbon dioxide emissions. |
| A．There is a continuous shortage of food in the ocean. |
| B．They contain certain unique chemicals. |
| C．Many sea creatures like to chase plastic by nature. |
| D．They look like the sea creatures' food. |
| A．The majority of it is buried or burned. |
| B．Most of it is recycled into new products. |
| C．129 billion facemasks end up in the ocean. |
| D．There is enough budget for plastic recycling. |
| A．Plastic can cut down fuel spending |
| B．The corona virus has caused more ocean plastic |
| C．Recycling programs are shutting down |
| D．Solutions to ocean plastic pollution are being explored |
9 . Multispectral cameras (多光谱摄像机) keep a watch on the polluted Ganges (恒河), where thousands of people suffer from water-borne diseases by the river.
The 1.500-mile-long Ganges originates in the Himalayan range and snakes across to the coastal state of West Bengal. In Rishikesh, the river is still relatively clear, but when it reaches the city of Kanpur, the Ganges turns a deep grey with raw waste and is faced with serious pollution. 764 industries along the river consume 1,123 million liters of water and flow back about half that volume as wastes.
Large-scale plans ever launched to clean the river prove unsatisfying. due to a lack of a clear understanding of what pollutants are in the water and how they affect it.
Dipro has been working on high tech solutions to the first survey and the analysis of the pollutants. To collect data on the water composition. he sent a plane into the sky, fitted with four multispectral cameras that use sensors to remotely monitor pollutants in the river, which create a long pathway easily studied from the sky. The reflection of lights from the surface of the liquid depends on the amount of various matters in it. At a higher concentration, these changes are visible to naked eyes, but in low concentrations, he uses specialized optical filters (光学过滤) and calculations to separate the wavelengths of light being reflected. Sometimes he creates false color composite images, which add color to the wavelengths to better distinguish different parts of the liquid with concentrations of floating pollutants. People can trace them back to the sources accurately and identify the polluters responsible.
When asked to develop this remote sensing method further to handle polluters better from the sky. Dipro says, "With new and affordable drones (无人机) available in the market, anyone can send one up and help collect relevant data."
1. What's the main idea of paragraph 2?| A．The link between the Himalaya and the river. |
| B．The development of industries along the river. |
| C．The formation of the Ganges |
| D．Severe pollution of the Ganges |
| A．Wavelengths of light. | B．Floating pollutants |
| C．False images. | D．Different parts of the liquid. |
| A．More drones will be adopted to address river pollution. |
| B．It's everyone's duty to engage in the work of drones. |
| C．Drones perform perfectly in river pollution control. |
| D．Drones serve as a must for a better environment |
| A．How to Operate Multispectral Cameras | B．How to Clean Ganges from the Sky |
| C．Dipro's Ambitious Invention | D．Ganges' Serious Pollution |
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(A)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词;
2．只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
When it come to the ocean, we are worried that its pollution is becoming more and more seriously. World Ocean Day, fallen on June 8th, is aimed at raising people’s awareness of ocean conservation. The ocean plays an important part in the world. It offers us sufficient food but maintains the balance of the nature. Therefore, it is time of us to devote ourselves to protecting the ocean. First of all, we should stop their own bad behavior, throwing rubbish into the ocean, for example. What’s more, we can hand out various brochure to call on more people protect the ocean. The more people are involved, the good the ocean environment is.
