1. What are the speakers mainly talking about?
| A．Sea animals. | B．Plastic pollution. | C．A blood disease. |
| A．Launching a campaign. | B．Making canned food. | C．Taking part in an activity. |
I have learned that many sea animals are found to die from
3 . Some scientists say that animals in the oceans are increasingly threatened by noise pollution caused by human beings.
The noise that affects sea creatures comes from a number of human activities. It is caused mainly by industrial underwater explosions, ocean drilling,and ship engines. Such noises are added to natural sounds. These sounds include the breaking of ice fields, underwater earthquakes, and sounds made by animals themselves.
Decibels(分贝) measured in water are different from those measured on land. A noise of one hundred and twenty decibels on land causes pain to human ears. In water, a decibel level of one hundred and ninety-five would have the same effect.
Some scientists have proposed setting a noise limit of one hundred and twenty decibels in oceans. They have observed that noises at that level can frighten and confuse whales.
A team of American and Canadian scientists discovered that louder noises can seriously injure some animals. The research team found that powerful underwater explosions were causing whales in the area to lose their hearing. This seriously affected the whales’ ability to exchange information and find their way. Some of the whales even died. The explosions had caused their ears to bleed and become infected.
Many researchers whose work depends on ocean sounds object to a limit of one hundred and twenty decibels. They say such a limit would mean an end to important industrial and scientific research.
Scientists do not know how much and what kinds of noises are harmful to ocean animals. However, many scientists suspect that noise is a greater danger than they believed. They want to prevent noises from harming creatures in the ocean.
1. According to the passage, which of the following is increasingly dangerous to sea creatures?| A．The man-made noises. | B．The noises made by themselves. |
| C．The sound of earthquakes. | D．The sound of the ice-breaking. |
| A．Different places with different types of noises. |
| B．The very human ears sensitive to all types of noises. |
| C．The same noise measured differently on land and in the ocean. |
| D．The ocean animals’ reaction to noises. |
| A．It’s short of fish. | B．It’s badly polluted. | C．It’s famous for rivers. |
5 . 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. |
6 . Japan said Tuesday that it would start pouring treated radioactive water (放射性废水) from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean within two years. Officials in Tokyo said the water would be filtered and diluted (稀释) to safe levels first, but most locals remain firmly opposed to the plan. Protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s residence in downtown Tokyo to criticize the government’s decision.
More than a million tons of radioactive water is currently being stored at the Fukushima power plant in a massive tank farm big enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The wastewater comes from water pumped in to cool the plant’s damaged reactors (反应堆). The government says it has simply run out of room to store all the water. The plan to dump the water into the ocean first came to light in the autumn of last year, when Japanese news reported anonymous (匿名的) officials said the decision had been taken.
On Tuesday, Suga said that after years of study, his scientific advisors had concluded that ocean discharge was the most possible way to cope with the wastewater. But the decision to pour Fukushima wastewater into the ocean has drawn fire from neighboring Asian countries and local fishermen along Japan’s coast.
China called the decision “extremely irresponsible,” and South Korea summoned (召唤) the Japanese ambassador in Seoul over the matter. “They told us that they wouldn’t release the water into the sea without the support of fishermen,” Kanji Tachiya, who leads a local cooperative of fisheries in Fukushima, told national broadcaster NHK ahead of the announcement on Tuesday. “We can’t support this move to break that promise and release the water into the sea unilaterally (单方面地).”
The actual release of water from the Fukushima plant will take decades to complete. Critics have called on Japan’s government to at least ensure that independent monitoring is in place to check the level of radiation in the poured water is safe for the environment.
1. How do most of the local people react to the plan?| A．Indifferent. | B．Uncertain. | C．Supportive. | D．Disapproving. |
| A．The wastewater is being stored in 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools. |
| B．It was last year that the plan was exposed to the public. |
| C．Ocean discharge is the only way to deal with the wastewater. |
| D．The plan has aroused anger in all the Asian countries. |
| A．The plan is to pull the whole world into the disaster. |
| B．It’s imperative that the plan should be carried out immediately. |
| C．It’s safe and easy to pour the wastewater into the ocean. |
| D．It’s unacceptable to pour the water into the ocean without fishermen’s permission. |
| A．The Japanese government has checked the level of radiation in the poured water. |
| B．Neigboring Asian countries agreed the decision to pour Fukushima wastewater into the ocean.. |
| C．It will actually take the Fukushima plant long to release treated radioactive water. |
| D．Independent monitoring of the water from the Fukushima plant aren’t necessary. |
7 . Health officials in Canada are very busy these days. They are placing chickens at fixed points all along their border with the United States of America. That’s an enormous distance of 2,500 km.
It’s not a practical joke, nor have the Canadians gone mad. They are using these chickens to see if the deadly West Nile virus is lurking around. The virus infects birds, so they think that the chickens have a good chance of catching the virus. Or the virus will catch the chickens.
Countries around the world are realizing something important. That it may just be possible to stop certain kinds of people from entering their land, but it is very difficult to try and stop viruses that travel from one end of the earth to another. When they travel to new places, they adjust very easily to those climates and sometimes start destroying the local plant and animal life. These biological polluters are called smart polluters.
These smart polluters can be carried across borders of countries unknowingly. Just as we humans are travelling across the globe more often than earlier, these biological polluters have also started journeying much more. They slide into aircraft through their wheels. They bore their way into objects that air travelers may be carrying from one country to another.
Suddenly, a lot of things become clearer. Like why the customs officials in many foreign countries prevent you from bringing in a small plant, or a decorative item made of wood that is in its natural form… They tell you that it’s in the rules.
They have these rules because they know that these varieties of plants that are special to specific places have the power to spread new diseases among native plants and animals. They are called biological polluters and they always create problems in places where they do not belong. They could be special varieties of plants, bugs or even animals.
1. Why did the author talk about what Canadian officials’ are doing?| A．To introduce a successful case | B．To arouse readers’ curiosity |
| C．To describe a phenomenon | D．To introduce the topic |
| A．Tiger mosquitoes from Asia are busy biting Americans. |
| B．Pandas from China are wining millions of American’s hearts. |
| C．The small lobsters from Mexico are taking over most of lakes in America. |
| D．Tree snakes from New Guinea are busy eating up bird varieties in the country of Guam. |
| A．A lot of profit can be made from introducing foreign species. |
| B．People want to add more species to their surroundings. |
| C．People nowadays travel overseas more frequently. |
| D．There are more domestic flights than before. |
| A．To convince | B．To warn | C．To inform | D．To entertain |
Man did not have to think about the protection of his environment in the past. There were not many people on the Earth, and natural resources seemed to be unlimited.
Today, things are different.
Everyone realizes today that if too many fish are taken from the sea, there will soon be none left.
We realize that if rivers are polluted with waste products from factories, we will die. However, in most countries, waste products are still put into rivers or into the sea, and there are few laws to stop this.
We know, too, that if the population of the world continues to rise at the present rate, in a few years, there will not be enough food.
If we eat more vegetables and less meat, we will easily get more food. Land that is used to grow crops can feed five times more people than land where animals are kept.
The world population will not rise so quickly if people use modern methods of birth control.
China will closely track
Japan's plan prioritizes its own interests
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida
"We urge the Japanese government to listen to the voice of the international community and
Air pollution has largely gone under-reported by the media, yet despite
Then how can we measure and end such a problem? The answer is
