1 . Of the 8,300 million tons of virgin (原始的) plastic produced up to the end of 2015, 6,300 million tons have been discarded (丢弃). Most of that plastic waste is still with us, buried in landfills or polluting the environment. Microplastics have been found in Antarctic sea ice, in the guts of animals that live in the deepest ocean trenches and in drinking water around the world.

But what if we could wave a magic wand and remove all plastics from our lives? For the sake of the planet, it would be a tempting prospect — but we’d quickly find out just how far plastic has spread to every aspect of our existence.

In hospitals, the loss of plastic would be devastating. “Imagine trying to run a dialysis (透析) unit with no plastic”, says Sharon George, senior lecturer in environmental sustainability and green technology at Keele University in the UK. Plastic is used in gloves, tubing, blood bags, sample tubes and more.

Some everyday plastic items are also vital for protecting health. Face masks, including plastic-based surgical masks and respirators (人工呼吸器), as well as reusable cloth masks, have helped slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. “A mask that you have for COVID is related to our safety and the safety of others,” says George. “The impact of taking that away could be loss of life if you took it away on a big scale.”

Our food system would also quickly come apart. We use packaging to protect food from damage in transit and preserve it long enough to reach supermarket shelves, as well as for communication and marketing. “I cannot imagine how plastic would be replaced completely in our system,” says Eleni Iacovidou, a lecturer in environmental management at Brunel University London.

Swapping out plastic packaging would have knock-on (产生连锁反应的) environmental effects. While glass has some advantages over plastic, such as being endlessly recyclable, a one-liter glass bottle can weigh as much as 800 g compared to a 40 g plastic one. When those heavier bottles and jars need to be transported over long distances, carbon emissions grow even more.

It’s clear that replacing one material with another won’t solve all our plastic problems.

1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?

A．To give a definition.	B．To report on a study.
C．To introduce a topic.	D．To describe a phenomenon.

2. What does the underlined word “devastating” in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?

A．Interesting.

B．Practical.

C．Predictable.

D．Destructive.

3. What is Eleni Iacovidou’s attitude toward removing plastic totally in food system?

A．Doubtful.

B．Supportive.

C．Optimistic.

D．Uninterested.

4. Which would be the best title for the text?

A．What if we stopped using plastic?

B．Is plastic packaging bad for the environment?

C．More recycling won’t solve plastic pollution

D．Swapping out plastic for sustainable living

2 . 阅读下列短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Pillar coral (柱状珊瑚),     1     (find) throughout the Caribbean, is critically endangered now. Its population

    2     (decline) by more than 80 percent since 1990.     3    (rise) ocean temperatures and pollution make corals more easily get certain deadly diseases. And the pillar coral is really just the tip of the iceberg     4     it comes to the difficulty of corals.

3 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Does Recycling Work For Plastic?

Dealing with plastic waste is always a tough problem. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), half of the world’s plastic waste ends up in a landfill, 19% burned, and another 22% escapes waste management systems and goes into uncontrolled dumpsites.

So environmentalists suggest plastic waste should be recycled properly, which proves an effective way to handle other waste like paper, cardboard, metal and glass. However, a new study by Greenpeace, and reporting in the Boston Globe, suggests that recycling plastic is a “myth” and raises a major question about the future: does recycling work? Unfortunately, the short answer is “not really.”

There’s been a lot of debate over what really happens to recycled plastic. But scientists say that recycling plastic waste has mostly failed because it’s very difficult to collect and nearly impossible to sort. Because plastic is often made from harmful materials, it can be harmful to the environment to reprocess.

Much of the solution falls on big companies to change the way they do business. The way forward seems to be mostly to cut down on companies’ reliance on plastic packaging, and to move toward reusable packaging and packaging-free alternatives. Above all, companies need to phase out all single-use plastics. For the consumer, living more plastic-free is the only real solution available. Avoiding drinks in plastic containers, using a travel mug or reusable water bottle, bringing your own reusable bag, buying in bulk and cutting back on pre-packaged foods are all a good start.

But in the end, corporate America needs a deeper commitment to the plastic waste problem. “Companies must take action now to get rid of single-use plastics and packaging and not rely on false solutions such as recycling,” says Greenpeace.

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4 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容(1个单词)或括号内单词的正确形式。

Health Concerns Grow in East Palestine, Ohio, after Train Derailment

Health and environmental concerns are mounting in East Palestine, Ohio, after several derailed train cars released toxic fumes last week. On Feb. 3, about 50 cars of a Norfolk Southern train went off track in Ohio, causing a days-long fire in the area. Ten of the 50 derailed cars contained     1     (danger) chemicals like butyl acrylate (丙烯酸丁酯) and vinyl chloride (氯乙烯) that could     2     (possible) cause a severe explosion.

Later residents of East Palestine     3     (ask) to leave their community due to the potential threat. On Monday, Feb. 6, Ohio crews conducted what officials called a “controlled release” of the toxic chemicals,     4     caused heavy black smoke. The order was broadcast on Wednesday and since then, there have been     5     growing number of reports about people     6     (experience) a burning sensation in their eyes, animals falling ill and a strong odor lingering in the town.

So far, some business owners and East Palestine residents     7     (file) lawsuits against Norfolk Southern, saying the company was careless and demanding the fund medical screenings for many serious     8     (ill) that may be caused by exposure to those chemicals.     9    , local officials have insisted that the air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink in East Palestine. The Environmental Protection Agency said that no toxic chemicals have been detected in the 291 homes. There are 181 homes     10     (leave) to be evaluated in the voluntary indoor air screening program.

5 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. stem     B. dot     C. attributable     D. exceeded     E. overlook     F. exposed G. drainage     H. emerging     I. sinking     J. access     K. established

The Mega-City Environment

Mega-cities suffer from a catalog of environmental ills. A World Health Organization(WHO)/United Nations Environment Program(UNEP)study found that seven of the cities-Mexico City, Beijing, Cairo, Jakarta, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Moscow-had three or more pollutants that    1     the WHO health protection guidelines. All 20 of the cities studied by WHO/UNEP had at least one major pollutant that went beyond    2     health limits.

According to the World Resources Institute, “Millions of children living in the world’s largest cities, particularly in developing countries, are    3     to life-threatening air pollution two to eight times above the maximum based on WHO guidelines. Indeed, more than 80 percent of all deaths in developing countries    4     to air pollution-induced lung infections are among children under five.” In the big Asian mega-cities such as New Delhi, Beijing and Jakarta, approximately 20 to 30 percent of all respiratory diseases    5     from air pollution.

Almost all of the mega-cities face major fresh water challenges. Johannesburg, South Africa, is forced to draw water from highlands 370 miles away. In Bangkok, saltwater is invading aquifers(地下蓄水层). Mexico City has a serious    6     problem because of excessive groundwater withdrawal.

More than a billion people, 20 percent of the world’s population, live without regular    7     to clean running water. While poor people are forced to pay high fees for private water, many cities squander their resources through leakages and illegal    8    . “With the population of cities expected to increase to five billion by 2025,” says Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UNEP, “the urban demand for water is set to increase rapidly. This means that any solution to the water crisis is closely linked to the governance of cities.“

Mega-city residents, crowded into unsanitary slums, are also subject to serious disease outbreaks. Lima, Peru(with population estimated at 9.4 million by 2015)suffered a cholera outbreak in the late 1990s partly because, as the New York Times reported, ”rural people new to Lima...live in houses without running water and use the outhouses(屋外厕所)that    9     the hillsides above.“

It’s worth looking at some of these    10     mega-cities in detail, because daily life there is likely to be the pattern for a majority of the world’s population. Most are already experiencing severe environmental problems that will only be worsened by rapid population increases.

6 . Microplastic pollution is increasing greatly around the globe, according to a study of plastic particles (微粒)carried in the air.

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 breathing in these particles can be harmful to 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 in the environment and move around everywhere.”

The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Acadenry of Sciences, examined airborne (空气传播的)microplastics, which have been far less studied than plastics 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 (来源),and it was the first such study to do so.

They found that roads were the main factor (因素)in the western US, linked to about 85% 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 major 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 said, “The study confirms the global-scale (全球规模的)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 can be known about microplastic pollution from this text?

A．The particles can do great harm to our lungs.

B．Airborne microplastics have been widely studied.

C．It has become the most pressing environmental problem.

D．There is less plastic in the air than in oceans and rivers.

2. What did the researchers find out about microplastic pollution?

A．Its results differ across many continents.

B．Africa and Asia are suffering most from it.

C．Roads and fields are largely to blame for it.

D．It spreads fast from one continent to another.

3. What should the researchers do next according to Professor Andreas Stohl?

A．To predict the potential damage of microplastics.

B．To understand the nature of microplastic pollution.

C．To improve the method of collecting samples of microplastics.

D．To collect more data to understand the sources of microplastics.

4. What can be the best title for this text?

A．Effects of microplastics on human health

B．Microplastic pollution on the global scale

C．Possible solutions to microplastic pollution

D．Microplastic pollution rising quickly in the air

7 . Recycling in general can be an effective way to reuse natural material resources. The U.S.’s high recycling rate of paper, 68 percent, has proved this point. But although some materials can be effectively recycled and safely made from recycled content, plastics cannot. Plastic recycling does not work and will never work.

The problem with recycling plastic lies not with the concept or process but with the material itself.   There are thousands of different plastics, each with its own characteristics. They all include different chemicals that cannot be recycled together, making it impossible to sort the trillions of pieces of plastics into separate types for processing. What’s more, plastic recycling costs more than new plastic because collecting, sorting, transporting, and reprocessing plastic waste is very expensive.

Despite this obvious failure, the plastics industry has begun a decades-long campaign to keep the lie that the material is recyclable, which reminds the public of the tobacco industry’s efforts to tell smokers that filtered (过滤的) cigarettes are healthier than unfiltered cigarettes.

Traditional mechanical recycling, in which plastic waste is ground up and melted (熔化), has been around for many decades. Now the plastics industry is promoting the benefits of so-called chemical recycling, in which plastic waste is broken down using high heat and turned into a low-quality fossil fuel. In 2018, Dow Chemical claimed that the Renewlogy chemical-recycling factory in Salt Lake City was able to reprocess mixed plastic waste through the “Hefty EnergyBag” program and turn it into diesel fuel (柴油). As Reuters showed in a 2021 survey, however, the pyrolysis (高温分解) process was not worth it.

We’re not making a case for hopelessness. Just the opposite(相反的). We need the facts so that individuals and policymakers can take action. Proven solutions to the plastic-waste and pollution problems exist and can be quickly copied across the country. These solutions include placing bans on single-use plastic bags and unrecyclable single-use plastic food-service products, and installing dishwashing equipment in schools.

Consumers can put pressure on companies to stop filling store shelves with single-use plastics by not buying them and instead choosing reusables and products in better packaging. And we should all keep recycling our paper, boxes, cans, and glass, because that actually works.

1. What is the problem with recycled plastic?

A．It costs too much to produce.

B．It can hardly be selected out.

C．It is generally of poor quality.

D．It can’t be stored in large numbers.

2. What is the plastics industry trying to do?

A．To compete with the tobacco industry.

B．To cut down the cost of recycling plastic.

C．To uncover the lie of the tobacco industry.

D．To prove the possibility of recycling plastic.

3. What is the fourth paragraph mainly about?

A．Traditional recycling proves to be safer.

B．Chemical recycling turns out to be a failure.

C．Chemical recycling can save energy resources.

D．Traditional recycling can deal with limited waste.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?

A．To show the difficulty in recycling plastic.

B．To introduce a new way of recycling plastic.

C．To stress the importance of recycling plastic.

D．To call for a ban on single-use plastic products.

8 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What did wildlife officials decide to do with the washed-up dolphin?

A．Clear her stomach.

B．Put her back to the sea.

C．Kill her in a painless way.

2. What was still unknown yet?

A．Why the dolphin got sick.

B．Whether the dolphin was pregnant.

C．What was in the dolphin’s stomach.

3. Where is the talk probably being given?

A．In a lecture hall.

B．At a radio studio.

C．On the beach.

9 . A cap and trade system is a method for managing pollution, with the end goal of reducing the overall pollution in a nation, region, or industry. Many supporters of pollution control are in favor of the concept of such systems, arguing that well-designed cap and trade systems are extremely effective, and that they make sense economically as well.

Under a cap and trade system, a government authority first sets a cap, deciding how much pollution in total will be allowed. Next, companies are issued credits, essentially licenses to pollute, based on how large they are, what industries they work in, and so forth. If a company comes in below its cap, it has extra credits that it may trade with other companies.

For companies that come in below their caps, this system is great, because they can sell their extra credits, profiting while reducing their pollution. For companies that cannot get their pollution under control, the system punishes them for their excess pollution while still bringing overall pollution rates down. In a sense, the need to purchase credits acts as a fine, encouraging companies to reduce their emissions.

By creating a cap, nations make it clear that they want to reduce overall emissions, rather than just fining companies for excessive emissions or trying to force all companies to reduce their emissions by a set percentage. Cap and trade systems allow for flexibility, which usually benefits the market. Some people view the concept as preferable to a taxation or fining system, because it is easier to administer and it results in a pollution reduction. These systems are most commonly used for carbon emissions, leading people to refer to it as “carbon trading”, and there is a potential for a global carbon trading market, in which more efficient nations could trade credits with other countries.

1. What can be inferred about the cap and trade system?

A．It can greatly promote economy in a nation.

B．It will soon be welcomed by all companies.

C．It is well-designed and extremely effective.

D．It is environmentally and economically friendly.

2. What kind of companies can trade their extra credits?

A．Those who always have more extra credits.

B．Those whose overall pollution is below their caps.

C．Those who have never been fined for overall pollution.

D．Those who help other companies reduce their pollution.

3. What do we learn from the last paragraph?

A．All the pollution will be reduced by the cap and trade system.

B．Carbon trading is likely to be conducted among countries.

C．Carbon trade is more effective than the cap and trade system.

D．The taxation and fining system now is out of use.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The use of credits in reducing pollution.

B．Efficient ways to manage overall pollution.

C．An introduction of the cap and trade system.

D．Potential application of the cap and trade system.

10 . Plastic is everywhere. A lot of it ends up in the ocean. Most plastics in the ocean break up into very small particles called “micro-plastics”—less than five millimeters in length or about the size of a sesame (芝麻) seed. It is the most common type of marine debris (垃圾) found in the ocean. Plastic debris can come in all shapes and sizes and be harmful to our ocean and water life.

Micro-plastics come from various sources, including larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller pieces. In addition, micro-beads, a type of smaller micro-plastic, are very tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene (聚乙烯) plastic added as exfoliants (去角质剂) to health and beauty products,like toothpastes. These tiny particles easily pass through water systems and end up in the ocean, posing a potential threat to water life. What is worse, these micro-beads or plastic particles in the marine environment are eaten by plankton (浮游生物)，which are then eaten by fish. They continue to work their way up the food chain until they reach our dinner plates.

New research has shown that household dust is a more likely source of micro-plastics. According to researchers,114 pieces of micro-plastic settle on a dinner plate during the 20-minute duration of a meal. adding up to anywhere between 13,000 and 68,000pieces per year. And when you breathe in air, you could be breathing in the microscopic plastic particles as well.

How about drinking water? The non-profit journalism organization Orb Media tested 259 bottles of water bought from 9 different countries. The tests found that there was an average of 10. 4 plastic particles (0. 1 millimeters or larger) per liter of water. That level of micro-plastics in bottled water was double the level found in tap water. The findings suggest if you drink one liter of bottled water per day, you could be consuming tens of thousands of micro-plastic particles each year.

It is apparent that the problem of micro-plastics is still a huge one.

1. Where is the text probably taken from?

A．A science lecture.	B．A tourism brochure.
C．A wildlife website.	D．A water advertisement.

2. Why did the author mention sesame seed in Paragraph One?

A．To state micro-plastics are eatable.	B．To show micro-plastics are common.
C．To prove micro-plastics are small.	D．To explain micro-plastics are light.

3. How does the plastic get into humans’ body?

A．Plastic debris→ health products →plankton →micro-beads →fish →humans’ body

B．Plastic debris →health products →plankton →fish →micro-beads →humans’ body

C．Plastic debris →micro -beads →health products →plankton →fish →humans’ body

D．Plastic debris →micro-beads →health products →fish →plankton →humans’ body

4. What is the best title of the text?

A．The Harmful Effects of Micro-plastics	B．The Development of Plastics
C．The Polluted Drinking Water	D．The Measures to Protect the Oceans