A
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this week showed its yearly Arctic (北极的) report. It included a list of problems that the Arctic was facing. Arctic sea ice “remains younger, thinner and covers less area than in the past，” the NOAA report said. The report's lead author, Emily Osborne, said that full Arctic area was experiencing the greatest change “in human history”．
Scientist Walid Abdalati used the word “scary” to describe what was happening in the Arctic. He is a former chief scientist at the American space agency NASA and the director of the University of Colorado's environmental science program. “It's a new Arctic. We've gone from white to blue，” Abdalati said, describing the increasingly icefree waters.
The report said continued warming in the Arctic was driving “change in the environmental system in predicted, and also unexpected, ways.” A more concerning problem was the recordlow (历史新低的) levels of winter sea ice in the Bering Sea, scientists said. The Bering Sea early this year “lost an area of ice — the area of Idaho，” said Dartmouth College professor Donald Perovich. He is a cowriter of the report. The western American state of Idaho is over 200,000 square kilometers.
Gay Sheffield is a marine (海洋的) animal scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She is studying the recordlow ice and its effects. She lives in Nome, an Alaskan city that sits on the Bering Sea. She has noticed the decrease in sea ice herself. And she told other scientists this week at the yearly American Geophysical meeting that her town still had open water. This is extremely unusual for the month of December.
She also said the area around Nome had seen environmental change because of the lack of sea ice, adding that many species of ocean life had died.
【语篇解读】 本文是一篇说明文。科学家发现，北极的冰融化得很快，很多地方都没有冰了，这一变化对那里的环境也造成了影响。
21．What did the NOAA report show this week?
A．The Arctic was losing its ice quickly.
B．A lot of new sea ice formed in the Arctic.
C．Humans were faced with a list of problems.
D．Humans were experiencing the greatest change ever.
答案与解析：A 细节理解题。根据第一段的“It included a list of problems that the Arctic was facing. Arctic sea ice ‘remains younger, thinner and covers less area than in the past，’．..”可知，这个报告表明北极的冰在快速融化。
22．How does Walid Abdalati most probably feel about the Arctic's condition?
A．Interested. B．Confused.
C．Concerned. D．Excited.
答案与解析：C 推理判断题。根据第二段的“Scientist Walid Abdalati used the word ‘scary’ to describe what was happening in the Arctic.”及“It's a new Arctic. We've gone from white to blue, ...”可推断，北极的情况让Walid Abdalati很担心。
23．What can we learn about Gay Sheffield's town?
A．It is very far from the Arctic.
B．It doesn't have a lot of marine animals.
C．It has become much colder than before.
D．It usually has no open water in December.
答案与解析：D 推理判断题。根据第四段的“... her town still had open water. This is extremely unusual for the month of December.”可知，一般情况下十二月份的时候那里户外的水都结冰了。
