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 (航天飛機) 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 (軌道航天飛機) , 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 (軌道航天飛機) 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 (決定性的) 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 (倡議) , 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 (保護區(qū) ) (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 (意外之財) in tax revenues, royalties ( 開采權使用費) 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.

　　答案與解析

　　第一篇

　　1．B。細節(jié)題。題干：NASA(美國國家航空航天局)設計新航天飛機的目的是什么?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到文章第一段，此處指出研發(fā)這種新的航天器的目的是取代現(xiàn)有的航天飛機，把航天員送到國際空間站去。故選B。

　　2．C。細節(jié)題。題干：除了運送航天員這一主要使命外，航天飛機還用來干什么?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到原文第一段，可知它還被用做太空急救車，故選C。

　　3．A。細節(jié)題。題干：這架航天飛機的設計表明了什么?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到第四段，該段指出，新設備的發(fā)射表明NASA繼續(xù)關注長期太空勘探，盡管存在一些困難。所以選項A“NASA繼續(xù)探索太空的決心”為正確答案。

　　4．D。細節(jié)題。題干：NASA什么時候開始著手設計后續(xù)的航天飛機?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到倒數(shù)第三段第一句，該句提到研制工作很多年前就開始了，故選D。

　　5．C。細節(jié)題。題干：10億美元的款項被批準后用來干什么?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到最后一段，該段提到，若10億美元的款項獲得國會批準，這筆款項基本上平分給the orbital Space Plane和Next Generation Launch Technology這兩個研究項目，故選C。

　　第二篇

　　1．C。細節(jié)題。題干：布什總統(tǒng)如何看待ANWR的采油?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到文章第一段第二句，即布什認為開發(fā)ANWR的石油能夠幫助減輕加利福尼亞的電能危機，并促進國家的能源獨立。所以選C。

　　2．A。細節(jié)題。題干：從第二段得知，美國的石油行業(yè)__________。利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到第二段，前半部分提到了“石油開采會幫助減輕國家石油進口的壓力”，后半部分提到“石油開采對環(huán)境的破壞比較小”，整個段落都是在圍繞“開發(fā)石油可以帶來好處”的主題。與A中的producehighyields(產(chǎn)生很大收益)相符。

　　3．B。細節(jié)題。題干：反對在ANWR采油的人認為__________。利用題干關鍵詞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．”這句話表明，開采的石油“只是杯水車薪，幾乎對減輕美國的能源問題沒有任何作用”。所以選B。

　　4．C。詞匯題。題干：環(huán)境保護主義者說“not so fast”的意思是什么?“Not so fast”這句話出現(xiàn)在段首，隨后討論的是“他們認為石油開發(fā)的影響微乎其微”，暗示“not so fast”的含義是“不容樂觀的”，所以選C。

　　5．A。推理題。題干：從短文可推斷出在ANWR凍土下采油。文中提到了支持和反對石油開發(fā)的兩種觀點，文章最后也沒有說明任何一方觀點的優(yōu)劣，所以選A。

　　第三篇

　　1．D。細節(jié)題。題干：《落日之歌》這部小說主要講了什么?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到第一段的第二句話，即《落日之歌》這部小說因其對蘇格蘭鄉(xiāng)村貧苦農(nóng)民生活的真實描寫而令人震撼，近幾十年來多次被改編成多種其他藝術形式。由此可以推斷，這部小說主要內(nèi)容與蘇格蘭貧苦農(nóng)民的生活有關，故選D。

　　2．D。細節(jié)題。題干：下列有關Chris的表述，哪一項是不對的?利用題干關鍵詞和選項關鍵詞可以定位到第三段，該段描述了小說中女主人公Chris的具體生活。第三句話提到“We see her marry,lose her husband,then marry again”，可見Chris結了兩次婚，故選D。

　　3．B。細節(jié)題。題干：小說的開頭部分主要描述了什么?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到第四段的第三句話，即Kinraddie的悠久歷史也是小說描述的內(nèi)容之一，故選B。

　　4．A。細節(jié)題。題干：誰殺了Chris的丈夫Evan?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到文章倒數(shù)第二段，后面部分談到了Chris的丈夫Evan的死。戰(zhàn)爭最終奪去了Evan的生命，但事實上Evan并非死于德國人之手，而是死在自己人手上。據(jù)說他是因臨陣脫逃而被打死的。故選A。

　　5．C。推理題。題干：小說的題目中Sunset的含義是__________。利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到最后一段，這部小說表達的主要意義在于一種生活方式的結束，但它同時也關注著新的歐洲世界的各種變化，故選C。