The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says more than half of the world’s wildlife population has been lost, which the conservation group says has placed the health of the planet at risk.
The WWF recently released its 10th Flagship Living Planet Report. The group warns the condition of the world's animals is worse than its earlier reports showed, indicating worldwide action is needed.
The WWF is worried about the loss of and damage to Earth’s environment. The report provides information about more than 10,000 animal populations from 1970 to 2010. These populations are called “vertebrate species,” or animals with backbones — like fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. The report shows these populations have dropped by 52 percent in just 40 years. It warns freshwater species have fallen by 76 percent, which is almost twice the loss of land and ocean species. Most of these losses are in the tropics, with the biggest drop in Latin America.
Marco Lambertini, the WWF’s International Director-General said, “This is about losing natural habitats. This is about converting forests, grasslands, and wetlands into agriculture mainly, and it is about unsustainable use of wildlife. Illegal hunting has been actually increasing over the last 10 years, which definitely a driving force for extinction, particularly of large species.”
The report also notes what it calls the world’s “Ecological Footprint”, that is, the effect of human activities on the planet. Mr. Lambertini says there has been an increase in carbon dioxide gases and the pouring of nitrogen into oceans and rivers from fertilizers used in agriculture, which certainly cannot continue.
“We are consuming on average every year about the equivalent of about 1.5, one and a half times the resources available to the planet. That means we are cutting trees more quickly than they can be restored. We are fishing the oceans more quickly than fishing stocks can reproduce, and we are emitting in the atmosphere more CO2 than the natural systems can actually absorb, which is clearly not sustainable.”
Mr. Lambertini warns climate change affects almost everyone on the planet and that whole species may disappear if the world does not reduce the effects of humans on the climate.
1.According to the passage, what kind of species faces the biggest drop in population?
A. Land and ocean species.
B. Animals with backbones.
C. Freshwater species in Latin America.
D. Freshwater species in the tropics.
2.All the following can contribute to the loss of world’s wildlife population EXCEPT ________.
A. turning wildlife habitats into agriculture land.
B. making sustainable use of wildlife.
C. hunting illegally.
D. emitting CO2 gases and pouring nitrogen.
3.Which does the underlined word “converting” in paragraph 4 mean?
A. Conserving. B. Conveying.
C. Exchanging. D. Transforming.
4.It can be inferred from the passage that _______.
A. Marco is much concerned about human’s current behaviors towards wildlife.
B. what the planet provides now can satisfy human’s sustainable development.
C. more than half of the world’s wildlife population has been lost.
D. if humans reduce the effects on the climate, the whole species will not disappear.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says more than half of the world’s wildlife population has been lost, which the conservation group says has placed the health of the planet at risk.
The WWF recently released its 10th Flagship Living Planet Report. The group warns the condition of the world's animals is worse than its earlier reports showed, indicating worldwide action is needed.
The WWF is worried about the loss of and damage to Earth’s environment. The report provides information about more than 10,000 animal populations from 1970 to 2010. These populations are called “vertebrate species,” or animals with backbones — like fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles. The report shows these populations have dropped by 52 percent in just 40 years. It warns freshwater species have fallen by 76 percent, which is almost twice the loss of land and ocean species. Most of these losses are in the tropics, with the biggest drop in Latin America.
Marco Lambertini, the WWF’s International Director-General said, “This is about losing natural habitats. This is about converting forests, grasslands, and wetlands into agriculture mainly, and it is about unsustainable use of wildlife. Illegal hunting has been actually increasing over the last 10 years, which definitely a driving force for extinction, particularly of large species.”
The report also notes what it calls the world’s “Ecological Footprint”, that is, the effect of human activities on the planet. Mr. Lambertini says there has been an increase in carbon dioxide gases and the pouring of nitrogen into oceans and rivers from fertilizers used in agriculture, which certainly cannot continue.
“We are consuming on average every year about the equivalent of about 1.5, one and a half times the resources available to the planet. That means we are cutting trees more quickly than they can be restored. We are fishing the oceans more quickly than fishing stocks can reproduce, and we are emitting in the atmosphere more CO2 than the natural systems can actually absorb, which is clearly not sustainable.”
Mr. Lambertini warns climate change affects almost everyone on the planet and that whole species may disappear if the world does not reduce the effects of humans on the climate.
1.According to the passage, what kind of species faces the biggest drop in population?
A. Land and ocean species.
B. Animals with backbones.
C. Freshwater species in Latin America.
D. Freshwater species in the tropics.
2.All the following can contribute to the loss of world’s wildlife population EXCEPT ________.
A. turning wildlife habitats into agriculture land.
B. making sustainable use of wildlife.
C. hunting illegally.
D. emitting CO2 gases and pouring nitrogen.
3.Which does the underlined word “converting” in paragraph 4 mean?
A. Conserving. B. Conveying.
C. Exchanging. D. Transforming.
4.It can be inferred from the passage that _______.
A. Marco is much concerned about human’s current behaviors towards wildlife.
B. what the planet provides now can satisfy human’s sustainable development.
C. more than half of the world’s wildlife population has been lost.
D. if humans reduce the effects on the climate, the whole species will not disappear.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
The World Wildlife Fund for nature(WWF)says that we will be punished if no measures to control climate change.
A.are taken B.will take C.had taken D.was taken
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
It is reported that more than half of ________ surveyed on the website say they are content with their current life.
A. whom B. them C. ones D. those
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
It is reported that more than half of ________ surveyed on the website say they are content with their current life.
A. whom B. them C. ones D. those
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
As the world’s population continues to grow, the ___of food becomes more and more of a concern.
A.worth B.supply C.package D.list
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
It is estimated that more than half the world’s population is bilingual (双语的), and in an increasingly globalised world, there are obvious benefits of speaking more than one language. However, for many years, parents were advised not to teach their children to speak more than one language from birth. Learning two or more languages simultaneously (同时) was believed to cause confusion and slow down academic development. While it is certainly true that children who are learning to speak more than one language as their mother tongue will often mix the languages up or speak a little later, these are temporary problems, and there is no reason to avoid teaching a child more than one language.
In fact, there are plenty of reasons to encourage your child to become bilingual from birth. As well as the obvious benefits of being able to communicate with more people, and the possibility of earning more money, children who speak more than one language have been shown to score more highly in achievement tests at school. This is true for mathematics as well as tests of verbal (言语的) skills.
And in later life it has been found that bilinguals, on average, will tend to develop Alzheimer’s disease five years later than monolingual speakers. Speaking three or more languages offers even more protection. It seems that the increased number of connections within the brain allows bilinguals to cope better with brain damage.
But is it too late if you haven’t already learned a second language in childhood? It used to be thought that the adult brain was very fixed, but recent research has shown that we continue to develop new connections in the brain throughout our lives, meaning that it’s perfectly possible to learn another language to a high standard. Older learners are less likely to have native-like pronunciation, but they are better at learning vocabulary as they are able to use far more skills and strategies than children. And learning a language is like using a muscle – the more you use it, the stronger it gets, meaning that you will find your third language easier than your second, and so on.
1.Why shouldn’t parents be discouraged from teaching their children to be a bilingual?
A. Children’s confusion over two languages will not last long.
B. Children will not mistake one language for the other.
C. Parents should begin to teach a second language early.
D. Parents’ guidance will help children tell two languages apart.
2.Which of the following is NOT a possible benefit of being a bilingual?
A. A bilingual is less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
B. A bilingual child may do well in mathematics at school.
C. A bilingual will probably make more money.
D. A bilingual child owns relatively good language ability.
3.Compared with children, adult language learners ___________.
A. are slower at learning a second language.
B. are more skilled at building vocabulary.
C. are more likely to acquire a native accent.
D. are slower at making logic connections.
4.What can be learned from the passage?
A. A bilingual child will speak both the languages badly later in his life.
B. Learning a second language certainly contributes to your body fitness.
C. Connections within adults’ brain will permanently stop developing.
D. With each language learned, the learning process will become easier.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
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个适当的单词,在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。
According to the World Wildlife Fund, only about 3,890 tigers are left in the wild. India is home to 70 percent of them, and its role in 1. (ensure) the big cat’s survival can’t be understated. Tiger numbers in India are believed to have dropped from about 40,000 at the beginning of the 2.(19)century to just 1,800 in the early 1970s, when India launched the conservation program Project Tiger. Kanha was one of the original nine3. (reserve) set up under that program.
高三英语语法填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
Of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists (语言学家) say, nearly half are likely to disappear this century. In fact, one falls out of use about every two weeks.
Some languages die out in an instant, at the death of the only surviving speaker. Others are lost gradually in bilingual (双语的) cultures, as local tongues are edged out by the dominant (占主导地位的) language at school, in the marketplace and on television.
New research, supported by the National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, has found the five regions where languages are disappearing most rapidly. They are northern Australia, central South America, North America's upper Pacific coastal zone, eastern Siberia, and Oklahoma and the southwestern United States.
K. David Harrison, an associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, US, said that more than half the languages had no written form and were vulnerable to loss and being forgotten." Their loss leaves no dictionary, no text, or no record of the accumulated knowledge and history of a disappeared culture.
Harrison and other researchers started their rescue project last year. They have been trying to identify and record endangered languages. They interviewed and made recordings of the few remaining speakers of a language and collected basic word lists. The individual projects, some lasting three to four years, involve hundreds of hours of recording speech, developing grammar and preparing children's readers in the obscure (逐渐没落的) language. The research has concentrated on preserving entire language families.
"These are probably languages that cannot be brought back, but at least we made records of them," said Gregory Anderson, director of the Living Tongues Institute, in Oregon, US.
1.What does the passage mainly tell us?
A. Many languages are quickly disappearing.
B. Some languages are disappearing because they are hard to remember.
C. Chinese is one of the languages that are disappearing.
D. Thanks to some researchers, many endangered languages have been rescued.
2.What does the word vulnerable in the fourth paragraph mean?
A. easy to remember. B. easy to forget.
C. likely to be damaged. D. likely to be protected.
3.Which of the following is true according to the fifth paragraph?
A. Harrison and other researchers are trying to find out why some languages died out.
B. Harrison and other researchers tried to start a rescue project.
C. Harrison and other researchers have concentrated on preserving all the languages.
D. Harrison and other researchers have done some rescue work on the obscure languages.
4.One of the things that Harrison and other researchers did was ________.
A. to have more people speak the disappearing language
B. to make records of the disappearing language
C. to limit dominant languages
D. to publish a dictionary of the disappearing language
5.What do you think is the suggested reason for some languages disappearing?
A. Local tongues are gradually edged out by the dominant language at school, in the marketplace and on television.
B. The number of people who speak the languages are small.
C. There are no dictionaries for the languages.
D. No one make records of the languages, so they gradually disappear.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Scotland voted against independence;more than half of the people chose _____ part of the United Kingdom.
A. remaining B. remained
C. to have remained D. to remain
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
For most of us, work is the central, dominating fact of life. We spend more than half our conscious hours at work, preparing for work, traveling to and from work. What we do there largely determines our standard of living and our status to a considerable extent. It is sometimes said that because leisure has become more important, the injustices of work can be pushed into a corner, and that because most work is pretty intolerable, the people who do it should compensate for its boredom, frustrations and humiliations by concentrating their hopes on the other parts of their lives. For the foreseeable future, however, the material and psychological rewards which work can provide will continue to play a vital part in determining the satisfaction that life can offer.
Yet only a small minority can control the pace at which they work or the conditions where their work is done; only for a small minority does work offer scope for creativity, imagination or initiative.
Inequality at work is still one of the most glaring (明显的) forms of inequality in our society. We cannot hope to solve the more obvious problems of industrial life, many of which arise from the frustrations created by inequality at work, unless we handle it determinedly.
The most glaring inequality is that between managers and the rest. For most managers, work is an opportunity and a challenge. Their jobs engage their interest and allow them to develop their abilities. They are constantly learning. They are able to exercise responsibility. They have a considerable degree of control over their own and others’ working lives. Most important of all, they have opportunities to initiate. By contrast, for most manual workers, work is a boring, dull, even painful experience. They spend all their working lives in intolerable conditions. The majority have little control over their work. It provides them with no opportunity for personal development. Many jobs are so routine that workers feel themselves to be mere cogs (齿轮) in the bureaucratic machine. As a direct consequence of their work experience, many workers feel alienated (疏远) from their work and their firm.
1.In the writer’s opinion, people judge others mainly by ________.
A.the type of work they do B.the place where they work
C.the time they spend at work D.the amount of money they earn
2.According to the writer, to solve problems in an industrial society, we ________.
A.should create more working opportunities for the poor
B.have to get rid of the unequal aspects in work
C.had better cancel all managing positions in a company
D.should encourage the manual workers to promote efficiency
3.What advantage does the writer say managers have over workers?
A.They won’t be out of work.
B.They get time off to learn constantly.
C.They can work at what interests them.
D.They have complete control over themselves.
高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析