题目
题型:不详难度:来源:
Mankind is getting more and more hard facts about other planets. The atmosphere of Venus has been explored; robots have surveyed the surface of Mars; Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn have been studied by spacecraft. Speculations have been answered; new questions have been raised, and enough hard data is right now becoming available to allow us to make the first attempt of planetary engineering.
In the past, people with excellent ideas about terraforming have kept them to themselves, or buried them in a desk drawer because they did not realize that anyone else was interested. But now, a wide circle of people has begun to do this kind of work. For instance, NASA funded a project on transforming Mars.
There are several strong reasons which demand that the possibilities of terraforming be studied carefully. First, it’s an exciting idea of a possible future for human beings. Such thinking has a valuable role in providing options for our future directions. Secondly, the techniques of terraforming will also help contemporary technologies in weather and climate control. Thirdly, such study may assist us in detecting any possible existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, 地外文明搜索) and alien (异己的) civilizations on other planets.
Though the mission is far beyond our reach at the moment, we should at least keep our options open. Through debate and study on this subject, the possibility of rebuilding other planets to make them suitable homes for people may come true some day in the future.
小题1:.
. According to the context, what’s the meaning of the word “speculation” in paragraph 2?
A.The act of discussing something with a group of people. |
B.The act of studying and researching. |
C.The act of guessing without knowing all the facts about something. |
D.The acting of writing letters to a certain organization. |
Why did people keep the idea of terraforming to themselves in the past?
A.They thought no one else would show interest in the idea. |
B.They gradually came to find the idea crazy. |
C.They thought the idea would never come true. |
D.They had few resources for further study on this topic. |
. Which is NOT the reason to support the study of terraforming?
A.Even if we don’t succeed in terraforming, such study may help us to better understand technologies such as climate and weather control. |
B.Such study may explore a new direction of development for human beings. |
C.Such study may enable us to find the lives on other planets. |
D.As the resources on Earth are being drained, it’s very urgent to study how to migrate (迁移) to other planets。 |
What’s the main idea of the article?
A.It’s highly possible that terraforming other planets will come true so we should increase investing in this program. |
B.Even if the idea of terraforming other planets may take centuries to realize, we have many reasons to support such studies. |
C.Terraforming other planets is the best option for human being’s future. |
D.More and more people are taking planetary engineering as their occupation. |
答案
小题1:.C
小题1:.A
小题1:.D
小题1:.B
解析
核心考点
试题【Terraforming (Earth-forming) other planets, also known as planetary engineering 】;主要考察你对题材分类等知识点的理解。[详细]
举一反三
Today’s parents yearn for the golden age that their own mothers enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s, researchers found. Mothers have less time to themselves and feel under greater pressure to handle work and family life than the previous generation. As a result, 88 per cent said they felt guilty about the lack of time they spent with their children.
The survey of 1,000 mothers also found that more than a third said they had less time to themselves than their mothers did – just three hours a week or 26 minutes a day. And 64 per cent said this was because they felt they ‘had’ to go out to work, while nearly a third (29 per cent) said they were under constant pressure to be the ‘perfect mother’, the report found.
Other findings showed social networking and parenting websites, as well as technology such as Skype, were important in providing help and support among female communities. Kate Fox, a member of the Social Issues Research Centre, which conducted the survey for Procter & Gamble, said: ‘With increasing pressure on mothers to work a “double shift” — to be the perfect mother as well as a wage-earner — support networks are more important than ever.
It comes as a separate report examining childcare in the leading industrialised nations found that working mothers in Britain spend just 81 minutes a day caring for their children as a ‘primary activity’. Mothers who stay at home, on the other hand, manage twice as much time – more than two and a half hours – looking after their offspring, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Critics say the pressure on women to work long hours, and leave their offspring in the hands of nurseries or childminders, is putting the well-being of their children at risk.
The study also reveals that, despite the fact that more and more modern mothers go out to work, the burden of childcare still falls on them - even if their husband is not in work. A father who is not in work tends to spend just 63 minutes a day looking after his child - 18 minutes less than a mother who goes out to work. Working fathers spare less than three quarters of an hour with their children.
小题1:. What does the passage mainly talk about?
A.The good old days of mothers in the 1970s and 1980s. |
B.The great sufferings of today’s children. |
C.The statistics of working mothers and full-time mothers. |
D.The big problems that today’s working mothers face. |
A.hate | B.miss | C.abandon | D.control |
A.Today’s mothers have less time left for their children and themselves. |
B.The working mothers can hardly strike the balance between work and family. |
C.Most of the mothers can not control their husbands nowadays. |
D.Modern fathers do not spend enough time with their children. |
A.working mothers can seek help on line |
B.Skype is a very famous expert in studying social issues |
C.working mothers’ double shift is to be a wife and a mother |
D.Kate Fox has opened a website offering help to working mothers |
A.it is wise for working mothers to put their kids in nurseries or childminders |
B.too much time in nurseries or childminders is bad for kids’ mental and physical health |
C.nurseries or childminders are dangerous places for children |
D.children do not like nurseries or childminders at all |
The crested ibis, once widespread in Japan, China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula, almost became extinct in the first half of the 20th century.
Before 1981, when seven crested ibis were accidentally found in Yangxian county, in Northwest China"s Shaanxi province, academics thought the species had been extinct in China for almost 17 years.
Due to the huge effort put into species protection since 1981, the number of crested ibis in China has risen to an estimated 1,617, including 997 in the wild, the State Forestry Administration said at a meeting on crested ibis protection in Xi"an on Monday.
However, although the ibis population exceeds 1,000, the birds are still not free from the threat of extinction, said Fang Shengguo, director of the State Conservation Center for Gene Resources of Endangered Wildlife at Zhejiang University.
“Ornithologists used inbreeding in the early stages of protection so that numbers of the precious birds could increase quickly, but that method had consequences,” Fang said.
"Studies have proved that as a result of inbreeding, crested ibis have the lowest genetic diversity of all endangered birds," Fang said.
"It means a high mortality rate and more physical defects for hatched chicks."
“The government should collect genetic information from all crested ibis and establish a genetic database as soon as possible, then design a scientific mating plan for the species,” Fang said.
So far, about 90 percent of crested ibis live in Shaanxi province, and fewer than 140 ibis live in three zoos in other parts of the country, including Beijing Zoo, according to Liu Dongping, an assistant researcher at the National Bird Banding Center of China, which is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Forestry.
The bird has lost the ability to migrate, he said, adding that if an unexpected natural disaster occurred in Shaanxi province or an infectious disease spread through the area, the ibis population could be greatly reduced.
Experts also warned that the increased population of ibis, whether in the wild or in captivity, requires a larger and more varied natural habitat.
Rampant hunting, the massive loss of habitat caused by deforestation and the overuse of pesticides, which killed aquatic insects on which the ibis feed, are believed to be the main reasons for the sharp reduction in the ibis population before 1981.
So, in 1983, a State-level natural reserve was set up in Shaanxi province to protect the bird. But the struggle for living space between human and animal has never stopped, said Lu Baozhong, deputy director of the Shaanxi Crested Ibis Conservation Station.
"For example, ibis often look for loaches in farmers" rice fields. Sometimes their claws trample the rice seedlings. In another case, villagers discovered some land with abundant mineral resources which happened to be a habitat for ibis," said Lu, who has devoted 30 years to ibis protection.
A long-term win-win solution for ibis and local communities needs to be developed, one that would provide ecological compensation for local residents, Lu said.
小题1:. What’s the best title for the passage?
A.The Rare Bird in China | B.New Problems for the Crested Ibis |
C.The Way to Save the Crested Ibis | D.The Reason for the Crested Ibis’s Extinction |
A.The crested ibis is a native of China. |
B.Before 1981, the crested ibis was extinct in China. |
C.The crested ibis is now free from the threat of extinction. |
D.Most of the crested ibis are in Shaanxi province. |
A.To increase the mortality rate. |
B.To increase the number of the crested ibis. |
C.To get more physical defects for hatched chicks |
D.To have the lowest diversity of the endangered bird. |
A.inbreeding | B.economic development |
C.over hunting | D.sandstorm |
A.Due to our great efforts, the crested ibis lives in the wild well. |
B.Scientists will choose a better habitat for the crested ibis. |
C.The problems of the crested ibis have not been solved now. |
D.The government has established a genetic database of the crested ibis. |
Then one day, some visitors from the city arrived. They told the villagers there were some people elsewhere who liked to eat frog’s legs. However, they did not have enough frogs of their own, and so they wanted to buy frogs from other places.
This seemed like money for nothing. There were millions of frogs in the fields around, and they were no use to the villagers. All they had to do was catch them. Agreement was reached, and the children were sent into the fields to catch frogs. Every week a truck arrived to collect the catch and hand over the money. For the first time, the people were able to dream of a better future. But the dream didn’t last long.
The change was hardly noticed at first, but it seemed as if the crops were not doing so well. More worrying was that the children fell ill more often, and, there seemed to be more insects around lately.
The villagers decided that they couldn’t just wait to see the crops failing and the children getting weak. They would have to use the money earned to buy pesticides (***虫剂)and medicines. Soon there was no money left.
Then the people realized what was happening. It was the frog. They hadn’t been useless. They had been doing an important job — eating insects. Now with so many frogs killed, the insects were increasing more rapidly. They were damaging the crops and spreading diseases.
Now, the people are still poor. But in the evenings they sit in the village square and listen to sounds of insects and frogs. These sounds of the night now have a much deeper meaning.
小题1:.
. From Paragraph 1 we learn that the villagers .
A.worked very hard for centuries | B.dreamed of having a better life |
C.were poor but somewhat content | D.lived a different life from their forefathers |
Why did the villagers agree to sell frogs?
A.The frogs were easy money. | B.They needed money to buy medicine. |
C.They wanted to please the visitors. | D.The frogs made too much noise. |
. What might be the cause of the children’s sickness?
A.The crops didn’t do well. | B.There were too many insects. |
C.The visitors brought in diseases. | D.The pesticides were overused. |
What can we infer from the last sentence of the text?
A.Happiness comes from peaceful life in the country. |
B.Health is more important than money. |
C.The harmony between man and nature is important. |
D.Good old days will never be forgotten. |
All this saves time, but at a price. When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane, our bodies tell us so. We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet-lag; our bodies feel that they have been left behind in another time zone. Again, spending too long at computer results in painful wrists and fingers. Mobile phones also have their dangers, according to some scientists; too much use may transmit harmful radiation into our brains, a consequence we do not like to think about.
However, what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not relax, or so it seems. We are so accustomed to constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and do nothing, or even just one thing at a time. Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.
There was a time when some people’s lives were devoted simply to the cultivation of the land or the care of cattle. No multi-tasking there; their lives went on at a much gentler pace, and in a familiar pattern. There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard tasks our ancestors faced: they farmed with bare hands, often lived close to hunger, and had to fashion tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence.
小题1: The new products become more and more time-saving because .
A.the manufacturers boast a lot | B.time is limited |
C.the prices are increasingly high | D.our love of speed seems never-ending |
A.Simple life in the past. | B.Imaginary life. |
C.Times of inventions. | D.Time for constant activity. |
A.Critical. | B.Optimistic. | C.Objective. | D.Negative. |
A.The present and past times. | B.Modern technology and its influence. |
C.Imaginations and inventions. | D.Machinery and human beings. |
The problem is that in the last century and a half, we have been putting too many of these gases into the earth’s atmosphere by burning large quantities of coal and oil and by cutting down forest. The rapid increase in greenhouse gases is making the world warmer. The world’s temperature has already gone up by half a degree this century, and the sea level has risen by 10 centimetres. If the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, there will probably be a rise in the earth’s temperature of between I and 4℃;. This may seem a small increase, but it would be enough to cause major changes in geography and agriculture. Large areas of the world would be flooded, and some areas would become dry and unable to produce crops. It is important, too, to consider that there may be a delay of about 30 years in the greenhouse effect. This means that we are probably experiencing only now the effect of the gases put into the atmosphere before the 1960s. Since then, our use of these gases has greatly increased.
小题1: According to the passage, we can know “greenhouse effect” means_______.
A.the way in which gases are used for keeping plants warm |
B.a natural course that is to a certain degree useful to us |
C.the way “greenhouse gases” trap heat on the earth |
D.the whole course in which greenhouse gases prevent heat |
A.all plants would not grow on our planet | B.soil would reduce the temperature by 30 degrees |
C.man would breathe the cleaner air | D.people couldn’t live in the earth |
A.Burning too much coal and oil produces lots of greenhouse gases. |
B.It has become warm on the earth now than in the past. |
C.Gases put into the atmosphere now will affect the earth years later. |
D.The temperature in a greenhouse is as high as that in the atmosphere. |
A.great harm will be done to mankind | B.the sea level would go up by 10 centimeters |
C.all the land in the world would be flooded | D.crops would be unable to grow on the earth |
A.the concept (概念) and the harm of the greenhouse | B.the relation between greenhouse gases and man |
C.the concept and change of greenhouse effect | D.the effect of the rise of the earth’s temperature |
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