A. As other bigger bills are out of print, the $100 bill is still the biggest one. B. Antarctica with very little rainfall is considered as the largest desert. C. Horseradish can be substituted with wasabi for the similar taste and color. D. An ostrich often uses its head as a weapon to fight against its enemy. 57. Which of the following is the best fit for the blank? A. Ostriches can breathe in the sand. B. Ostriches have very smart brains. C. Ostriches bury their heads in the sand. D. The ostrich’s head is the lightest in the world.

B

“Be afraid. Be very afraid,” says a character in The Fly, a horror film about a man who turns into an enormous insect. It captures the unease and disgust people often feel for the kingdom of cockroaches, Zika-carrying mosquitoes and creepy crawlies of all kinds. However, ecologists increasingly see the insect world as something to be frightened for, not frightened of. In the past two years, scores of scientific studies have suggested that trillions of murmuring, droning, honeybees, butterflies and beetles are dying off. “If all mankind were to disappear”, wrote E.O.Wilson, a respectable entomologist, “the world would regenerate… If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

Most of the studies describe declines of 50% and more over decades in different measures of insect health. The immediate reaction is shock. Insects enable plants to reproduce, through pollination (授粉), and are food for other animals, so a collapse in their numbers would be catastrophic.

But a second look leads to a different assessment. Rather than causing a panic the studies should act as a timely warning and a reason to take precautions. That is because the worst fears are unproven. There are no studies at all of wild insect numbers in most of the world. Reliable data are too scarce to declare a global emergency.

Moreover, where the evidence does show a collapse—in Europe and America—agricultural and rural ecosystems are holding up. Farm production still remains high. As some insect species die out, others seem to be moving into the niches (生态位) they have left, keeping ecosystems going, although with less biodiversity than before. It is hard to argue that insect decline is yet causing significant economic damage.

But there are complications. Agricultural productivity is not the only measure of environmental health. Animals have value, independent of any direct economic contribution they may make. The more species make up an

,ecosystem, the more stable it is likely to be. The extinction of a few insect species among so many might not make a big difference. The loss of hundreds of thousands would.

And the scale of the observed decline raises doubts about how long ecosystems can remain resilient (能复原的). An experiment in which researchers gradually pulled out insect pollinators from fields found that plant diversity held up well until about 90% of insects had been removed. Then it collapsed. Given the lack of data, it is impossible to know how close Europe and America are to an ecosystem collapse. But it would be reckless to find out by actually triggering one.

58. What does the underlined sentence in the first paragraph imply? A. Ecologists have long been afraid of those disgusting insects. B. Ecologists are worried about the disappearance of some insects. C. Ecologists have already got rid of the prejudiced feeling about insects. D. Ecologists are respectful of the insect’s ability to regenerate themselves. 59. What conclusion can we draw from the studies conducted in the past 2 years?

A. Though there is a decline in the number of insects, we still have the reason to be optimistic. B. Biodiversity can cause immediate damage so that we should take precautions right away. C. Data collected from all over the world is convincing to prove our environment is at risk. D. The consequence of decreasing biodiversity may be more serious than we can imagine. 60. What is the purpose of writing the passage? A. To show the magical power of our mother nature. B. To analyze why insects are on the edge of extinction. C. To draw people’s attention to the decreasing insects. D. To urge the scientists to collect more data about insects.

C

The advent of warm weather here in Maine calls for a seasonal ritual that, for me, puts an end to winter—fetching the wooden screen door.

Note that I wrote “wooden”. The aluminum models just won’t do it—they close too neatly and keep their perfect form for decades. In the 1960s, a time of imperfection, there was no perfect house, no perfect car, no perfect kids or parents. Why should a screen door be an exception?

I grew up with my siblings in a working-class neighborhood in New Jersey. When the warm weather arrived, my

dad would pull out the wooden screen door and install it over the back door, which could then be left wide open, admitting a refreshing breeze (we had no air conditioning).

My father was a Mr. Fix-it, so keeping the screen door serviceable was one of his hobbies. Every few years he gave it a fresh coat of paint and fixed it a bit. I distinctly remember him putting the last screw in the last hinge (铰链), and swinging the door shut with a “crack!”

A good, wooden screen door, unsightly as it was, had an invaluable function in the age of the stay-at-home mom: It alerted her to the coming and going of the kids. My siblings, and my friends ran in and out of the house, tearing the screen door open and letting it slap shut behind us. A hundred times a day. It was all good, and my mom never complained about the noise, because that was the purpose of a wooden screen door—to slam shut and thereby announce that her children were within earshot.

Several years ago, in a fit of nostalgia (怀旧), I went shopping for a wooden screen door. I was disappointed in the choices available. They looked a bit too solid, too well made. But I found one online, and within a week it was delivered to my doorstep.

The firm had sent me one with the wrong dimensions, so I asked my carpenter to make the necessary adjustments. Ozzie worked away at it for a couple of hours until he got it to sit neatly in its frame. I gave it a test: I pulled it open and let go. It closed in a lazy fashion. “Not good,” I pronounced. “Please remove the automatic door closer and adjust the door so it swings shut with a good crack.”

Ozzie went about his work and a short while later the task was done. The door was uneven in its frame, and the screen no longer lay flat. But when I pulled open the door and released it, the thing clapped shut like a rifle shot. “What do you think?” I asked. “It looks like hell,” said Ozzie. “But it sounds like heaven,” I said. And I, being the owner of the door—and the memory—had the final word.

61. What particular function did the wooden screen door perform in the writer’s childhood? A. It functioned as an air conditioner in summer. B. It helped sharpen his father’s repairing skills. C. It was more like a toy that kids often played with. D. It made Mom aware that the kids were close by.

62. The reason why the writer asked the carpenter to continue to adjust the door is that ________. A. the door was not the right size for the frame B. the door was poorly made that it didn’t suit him

C. he wanted to see how the door was supposed to shut D. he was determined to seize the ownership of the door 63. What does the wooden screen door mean to the writer now? A. It is a reminder of the imperfect things. B. It is a symbol of his memory of summer. C. It is a contributor to the better life he leads. D. It is an antique worth cherishing in the museum. 64. What is the best title for the passage? A. The good old days are gone B. Never judge a door by its appearance C. Summer announces itself with a crack D. Every single imperfection adds to beauty

D

“What is civilization?” asked Kenneth Clark 50 years ago in the BBC series on the subject. “I don’t know, and I can’t define it in abstract terms, yet. But I think I can recognise it when I see it, and I’m looking at it now.” And he turned to gesture behind him, at the soaring Gothic towers and flying buttresses of Notre Dame.

It seems inhuman to care more about a building than about people. That the sight of Notre Dame going up in flame has attracted so much more attention than floods in southern Africa which killed over 1,000 arouses understandable feelings of guilt. Yet the widespread, intense grief at the sight of the cathedral’s collapsing steeple (尖塔) is in fact profoundly human—and in a particularly 21st-century way.

It is not just the economy that is global today, it is culture too. People wander the world in search not just of jobs and security but also of beauty and history. A building on whose sunny steps you have rested, in front of which you have taken a selfie with your loved one, becomes a warm part of your memories and thus of yourself. That helps explain why China is in mourning—WeChat, young China’s principal means of talking to itself, has been throbbing with the story, and XiJinping, the country’s president, sent a message of condolence (慰问) to Emmanuel Macron, his French counterpart—while India was largely indifferent. Tourism from India to the West is a stream compared with the flood from China.

This visual age has blessed beauty with new power, and social media have turned great works of art into superstars. Only a few, though, have achieved this status. Just as there is only ever a handful of world-famous actors,