Human Space Exploration
While scientists are searching the cause of the Columbia disaster, NASA is moving ahead with plans to develop a new craft that would replace shuttles (航天飞机) on space station missions by 2012 and respond quickly to space station emergencies.
The space agency released the first set of mission needs and requirements several days ago for the orbital space plane (轨道航天飞机) , which would be designed to transport a crew of four to and from the International Space Station.
Although it includes few specifics, the plan states the orbiter (轨道航天飞机) will be safer,cheaper and require less preparation time than the shuttle. It would be able to transport four crew members by 2012--though it would be available for rescue missions by 2010. NASA says the craft should be able to transport injured or ill space station crew members to "definitive (决定性的) medical care" within 24 hours.
The release of the requirements showed NASA remains focused on the long-term priorities of space exploration, even as questions exist concerning the loss of Columbia and its seven-member crew on February 1st,2003.
Experts at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, have been working for years on a successor to the shuttle. The project, known as the Space Launch Initiative (倡议) , was divided last year into two parts--one focusing on a future launch vehicle, the other on a space station orbiter. The orbiter is expected to be ready sooner.
The program's managers say NASA officials have told them not to alter Space Launch Initiative in light of the Columbia disaster.
U. S. President George W. Bush asked Congress for about US$1 billion for Space Launch
Initiative in 2004, funds that would be almost equally split between the Orbital Space Plane and Next Generation Launch Technology.
1.NASA plans to design the new space craft to__________.
A. control the International Space Station.
B. carry astronauts to the International Space Station.
C. transport equipment to the International Space Station.
D. train astronauts in space flights.
2.Besides its main mission, the orbiter would also be used as__________.
A. a medical research center.
B. a space station.
C. a space ambulance.
D. a passenger plane.
3.The design of the orbiter indicates__________.
A. NASA's determination to continue space exploration.
B. NASA's disadvantage in space technology.
C. the great pressure from Congress on NASA.
D. a heavy defeat for NASA.
4.When did NASA start working on a successor to the shuttle?
A. One year before the Columbia disaster.
B. One year after the Columbia disaster.
C. Immediately after the Columbia disaster.
D. Years before the Columbia disaster.
5.According to the passage, the 1 billion funds, if granted, would__________.
A. be used to rebuild the International Space Station.
B. be awarded to the scientists working at NASA.
C. be shared by the two projects under the Space Launch Initiative.
D. be spent on the investigation of the Columbia disaster.
第二篇
Oil Exploitation Beneath ANWR'S Frozen Earth
Is there enough oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (保护区 ) (ANWR) to help secure America's energy future? President Bush certainly thinks so. He has argued that tapping ANWR's oil would help ease California's electricity crisis and provide a major boost to the country's energy independence. But no one knows for sure how much crude oil lies buried beneath the frozen earth with the last government survey, conducted in 1998, projecting output anywhere from 3 billion to 16 billion barrels.
The oil industry goes with the high end of the range, which could equal as much as 10% of U.S. consumption for as long as six years. By pumping more than 1 million barrels a day from the reserve for the next two or three decades, lobbyists claim, the nation could cut back on imports equivalent to all shipments to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. Sounds good. An oil boom would also mean a multibillion-dollar windfall (意外之财) in tax revenues, royalties ( 开采权使用费) and leasing fees for Alaska and the Federal Government. Best of all, advocates of drilling say, damage to the environment would be insignificant. "We've never had a document case of oil rig chasing deer out onto the pack ice." says Alaska State Representative Scott Ogan.
Not so fast, say environmentalists. Sticking to the low end of govemment estimates, the National Resources Defense Council says there may be no more than 3.2 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in the coastal plain of ANWR, a drop in the bucket that would do virtually nothing to ease America's energy problems. And consumers would wait up to a decade to gain any benefits, because drilling could begin only after much bargaining over leases,environmental permits and regulatory review. As for ANWR's impact on the California power crisis, environmentalists point out that oil is responsible for only 1% of the Golden State's electricity output and just 3% of the nation's.
1.What does President Bush think of tapping oil in ANWR?
A. It will exhaust the nation's oil reserves.
B. It will help secure the future of ANWR.
C. It will help reduce the nation's oil imports.
D. It will increase America's energy consumption.
2.We learn from the second paragraph that the American oil industry__________.
A. believes that drilling for oil in ANWR will produce high yields.
B. tends to exaggerate America's reliance on foreign oil.
C. shows little interest in tapping oil in ANWR.
D. expects to stop oil imports from Saudi Arabia.
3.Those against oil drilling in ANWR argue that__________.
A. it can cause serious damage to the environment.
B. it can do little to solve U.S. energy problems.
C. it will drain the oil reserves in the Alaskan region.
D. it will not have much commercial value.
4.What do the environmentalists mean by saying "Not so fast" (Line 1, Para.3)?
A. Oil exploitation takes a long time.
B. The oil drilling should be delayed.
C. Don't be too optimistic.
D. Don't expect fast returns.
5.It can be leamed from the passage that oil exploitation beneath ANWR's frozen earth__________.
A. remains a controversial issue.
B. is expected to get under way soon.
C. involves a lot of technological problems.
D. will enable the U.S. to be oil independent.
第三篇
A Tale of Scottish Rural Life
Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song (1932) was voted "the best Scottish novel of all time" by Scotland's reading public in 2005. Once considered shocking for its frank description of aspects of the lives of Scotland's poor rural farmers, it has been adapted for stage, film, TV and radio in recent decades.
The novel is set on the fictional estate of Kinraddie, in the farming country of the Scottish northwest in the years up to and beyond World War I. At its heart is the story of Chris, who is both part of the community and a little outside it.
Grassic Gibbon gives us the most detailed and intimate account of the life of his heroine ( 女主人公) . We watch her grow through a childhood dominated by her cruel but hard-working father;experience tragedy (her mother's suicide and murder of her twin children); and learn about her feelings as she grows into a woman. We see her marry, lose her husband, then marry again. Chris has seemed so convincing a figure to some female readers that they cannot believe that she is the creation of a man.
But it would be misleading to suggest that this book is just about Chris. It is truly a novel of a place and its people. Its opening section tells of Kinraddie's long history, in a language that imitates the place's changing patterns of speech and writing.
The story itself is amazingly full of characters and incidents. It is told from Chris' point of view but also from that of the gossiping community, a community where everybody knows everybody else's business and nothing is ever forgotten.
Sunset Song has a social theme too. It is concerned with what Grassic Gibbon perceives as the destruction of traditional Scottish rural life first by modernization and then by World War I.
Gibbon tried hard to show how certain characters resist the war. Despite this, the war takes the young men away, a number of them to their deaths. In particular, it takes away Chris' husband,Evan Tavendale: The war finally kills Euan, but not in the way his widow is told. In fact, the Germans aren't responsible for his death, but his own side. He is shot because he is said to have run away from a battle.
If the novel is about the end of one way of life it also looks ahead. It is a "Sunset Song" but is concerned too with the new Kinraddie, indeed of the new European world. Grassic Gibbon went on to publish two other novels about the place that continue its story.
1.What is Sunset Song mainly about?
A. The First World War.
B. The beauty of the sunset.
C. The new European world.
D. The lives of rural Scottish farmers.
2.Which statement is NOT true of Chris?
A. She is the heroine, of Sunset Song.
B. She had a miserable childhood.
C. She is the creation of a man.
D. She married only once.
3.What is the opening section of the novel mainly concerned with?
A. The climate of Kinraddie.
B. The history of Kinraddie.
C. The geography of Kinraddie.
D. The language spoken in Kinraddie.
4.Who killed Chris' husband, Evan?
A. His own troops.
B. The French army.
C. The Germans.
D. The Russian soldiers.
5.The word "'Sunset" in the title of this novel most probably means
A. the end of the heroine's life.
B. the end of the story.
C. the end of the traditional way of life.
D. the end of the day.
答案与解析
第一篇
1．B。细节题。题干：NASA(美国国家航空航天局)设计新航天飞机的目的是什么?利用题干关键词可以定位到文章第一段，此处指出研发这种新的航天器的目的是取代现有的航天飞机，把航天员送到国际空间站去。故选B。
2．C。细节题。题干：除了运送航天员这一主要使命外，航天飞机还用来干什么?利用题干关键词可以定位到原文第一段，可知它还被用做太空急救车，故选C。
3．A。细节题。题干：这架航天飞机的设计表明了什么?利用题干关键词可以定位到第四段，该段指出，新设备的发射表明NASA继续关注长期太空勘探，尽管存在一些困难。所以选项A“NASA继续探索太空的决心”为正确答案。
4．D。细节题。题干：NASA什么时候开始着手设计后续的航天飞机?利用题干关键词可以定位到倒数第三段第一句，该句提到研制工作很多年前就开始了，故选D。
5．C。细节题。题干：10亿美元的款项被批准后用来干什么?利用题干关键词可以定位到最后一段，该段提到，若10亿美元的款项获得国会批准，这笔款项基本上平分给the orbital Space Plane和Next Generation Launch Technology这两个研究项目，故选C。
第二篇
1．C。细节题。题干：布什总统如何看待ANWR的采油?利用题干关键词可以定位到文章第一段第二句，即布什认为开发ANWR的石油能够帮助减轻加利福尼亚的电能危机，并促进国家的能源独立。所以选C。
2．A。细节题。题干：从第二段得知，美国的石油行业__________。利用题干关键词可以定位到第二段，前半部分提到了“石油开采会帮助减轻国家石油进口的压力”，后半部分提到“石油开采对环境的破坏比较小”，整个段落都是在围绕“开发石油可以带来好处”的主题。与A中的producehighyields(产生很大收益)相符。
3．B。细节题。题干：反对在ANWR采油的人认为__________。利用题干关键词可以定位到最后一段：“…a drop in the bucket that would do virtually nothing to ease America’s energy problems．”这句话表明，开采的石油“只是杯水车薪，几乎对减轻美国的能源问题没有任何作用”。所以选B。
4．C。词汇题。题干：环境保护主义者说“not so fast”的意思是什么?“Not so fast”这句话出现在段首，随后讨论的是“他们认为石油开发的影响微乎其微”，暗示“not so fast”的含义是“不容乐观的”，所以选C。
5．A。推理题。题干：从短文可推断出在ANWR冻土下采油。文中提到了支持和反对石油开发的两种观点，文章最后也没有说明任何一方观点的优劣，所以选A。
第三篇
1．D。细节题。题干：《落日之歌》这部小说主要讲了什么?利用题干关键词可以定位到第一段的第二句话，即《落日之歌》这部小说因其对苏格兰乡村贫苦农民生活的真实描写而令人震撼，近几十年来多次被改编成多种其他艺术形式。由此可以推断，这部小说主要内容与苏格兰贫苦农民的生活有关，故选D。
2．D。细节题。题干：下列有关Chris的表述，哪一项是不对的?利用题干关键词和选项关键词可以定位到第三段，该段描述了小说中女主人公Chris的具体生活。第三句话提到“We see her marry,lose her husband,then marry again”，可见Chris结了两次婚，故选D。
3．B。细节题。题干：小说的开头部分主要描述了什么?利用题干关键词可以定位到第四段的第三句话，即Kinraddie的悠久历史也是小说描述的内容之一，故选B。
4．A。细节题。题干：谁杀了Chris的丈夫Evan?利用题干关键词可以定位到文章倒数第二段，后面部分谈到了Chris的丈夫Evan的死。战争最终夺去了Evan的生命，但事实上Evan并非死于德国人之手，而是死在自己人手上。据说他是因临阵脱逃而被打死的。故选A。
5．C。推理题。题干：小说的题目中Sunset的含义是__________。利用题干关键词可以定位到最后一段，这部小说表达的主要意义在于一种生活方式的结束，但它同时也关注着新的欧洲世界的各种变化，故选C。
