Houston, Texas (June 8. 2002)–in 2004, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will send two robots to separate places of Mars to seek out past or present signs of water. It is an exciting idea to send two robots driving over very different places of Mars at the same time, to be able to see what is on the other side of the hill.
Last month, NASA announced it was sending one robot to Mars, but after two weeks, it decided there was enough money for two. The robots will be sent up within two weeks of each other in May and June of 2003 from Kennedy Space Center. If all goes well, the two spacecraft will touch down on Mars, after a seven-and –a-half-month space flight, on January 2 and 20, 2004.
The robots, each weighing 150 kilograms, can cover 100 meters per day. They are designed to be able to examine the mineral content of the soil, and their special camera will take pictures of the lands and hills. Although they will be under control from the earth, the robots are able to move more freely compared to those sent up before them.
The actual landing points have not been determined yet, but the scientists say it will be in areas where they hope to find water.
1.According to the news report, scientists plan to send robots up to Mars to _____.
A.find out whether there is water on Mars B.see if robots can find minerals there
C.test how fast robots can drive there D.prove that robots can work on Mars
2.How long in between will the two robots be sent to Mars?
A.1 year B. 7.5 months C. 2 months D. 2 weeks
3. One of the important jobs for the robots on Mars is to _______.
A.study the soil B. walk everywhere
C.test the new camera D. find a suitable landing point
4. We can infer from the last sentence that scientists ________.
A. have changed the landing points many times
B. hope to land the robots on the surface of water
C. are still working on the plan
D. know where they can find water
Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs? What about a hurricane? A meteorologist has done some estimates and the results might surprise you.
Let's start with a very simple white puffy cloud — a cumulus cloud（积云）. How much does the water in a cumulus cloud weigh? Peggy LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, did the numbers. "The water in the little cloud weighs about 550 tons," she calculates. "Or if you want to convert it to something that might be a little more meaningful … think of elephants."
The thought of a hundred elephants-worth of water suspended in the sky begs another question — what keeps it up there?
"First of all, the water isn't in elephant sized particles（微粒）, it's in tiny tiny tiny particles," explains LeMone. And those particles float on the warmer air that's rising below. But still, the concept of so much water floating in the sky was surprising even to a meteorologist like LeMone. "I had no idea how much a cloud would weigh, actually, when I started the calculations," she says.
So how many elephant units of water are inside a big storm cloud—10 times bigger all the way around than the "puffy" cumulus cloud? Again, LeMone did the numbers: About 200,000 elephants.
Now, ratchet up the calculations for a hurricane about the size of Missouri and the figures get really massive. "What we're doing is weighing the water in one cubic meter theoretically pulled from a cloud and then multiplying by the number of meters in a whole hurricane," she explains.
The result? Forty million elephants. That means the water in one hurricane weighs more than all the elephants on the planet. Perhaps even more than all the elephants that have ever lived on the planet. The weight of is NOT mentioned in the passage.
| A．a cumulus cloud | B．a tornado | C．a hurricane | D．a storm cloud |
How did Peggy LeMone feel about the result of her calculations?
| A．She found it not convincing. |
| B．She thought it needed further calculations. |
| C．She was quite surprised at it. |
| D．She considered the calculations inaccurate. |
What can be inferred from the passage?
| A．A storm cloud weighs about 200,000 elephants. |
| B．The water in a hurricane weighs more than that in any other kind of cloud. |
| C．There are less than forty million elephants living on the earth. |
| D．The water in the cloud is in very tiny partials. |
Competition. It’s a simple word, yet a very complex word that covers many angles when it comes to how gasoline prices are determined. It seems so easy to explain, but don’t let that trick you—it’s incredibly difficult to explain and adequately understand.
Say you’re on a Sunday afternoon drive, and notice a gas station near you charging $3.50. Down the road a few miles, that price could easily be 10 or more cents higher or lower. The question is “how” or “why” is that? Think of it this way. Are you more likely to get a better deal on a car if there are two similar car dealers next to each other? Perhaps, because the dealers are too close. Say there is a third similar car dealer miles away. Is he going to be at the same level of competition and sell his cars for the same price as the two dealers next to each other? Likely not. He may charge more or less. Maybe people don't know there are two other dealers down the road. Maybe the dealer is almost outside of the city and the land value isn't as high, so his taxes aren't as high.
These situations do take place at gas stations. And more factors can impact what a station will charge. Timing can greatly impact what price a station charges as well! Many motorists fail to realize that the price a station pays for gasoline changes daily. If one station gets lucky and buys gas on Monday and the cost goes up Tuesday, the station that bought on Monday doesn’t necessarily have to raise prices like the station that bought on Tuesday. Maybe the station that got caught buying for a higher price on Tuesday will pass that higher cost on by raising its gas price.
Perhaps the difference is what brand the station is---branded stations usually pay a slightly higher cost for their gasoline. In return for paying a higher cost, those stations are guaranteed first supply in case of emergency situations. Independent stations don’t pay as much, but aren’t guaranteed supply.
While competition sounds easy to understand, there are always a large number of factors that could influence what one station charges. Keep in mind how many variables there are next time you fill up.What could be the best title for the passage?
| A．How Competition Impacts Gas Prices |
| B．Gas Prices Go Up or Down |
| C．Competition---a Very Complex Word |
| D．We Can’t Stress Enough the Need for Competition |
The example of car dealers is used to show _________.
| A．car prices are determined by car dealers |
| B．location is an important factor in pricing |
| C．the quality of service matters most |
| D．dealing strategy should be flexible |
The gas prices of a station always change partly because _________.
| A．a gas station always wants to charge more |
| B．the gasoline is in great demand |
| C．the cost of the gas the station buys varies daily |
| D．gas is in greater need on Monday |
According to the passage, branded stations _________.
| A．spend less money on their gasoline |
| B．have more staff than independent stations |
| C．charge less for high quality oil |
| D．offer a steady oil supply |
Goldie's Secret
She turned up at the doorstep of my house in Cornwall. No way could I have sent her away. No way, not me anyway. Maybe someone had kicked her out of their car the night before. "We're moving house. "No space for her any more with the baby coming. " "We never really wanted her, but what could we have done? She was a present. " People find all sorts of excuses for abandoning an animal. And she was one of the most beautiful dogs I had ever seen.
I called her Goldie. If I had known what was going to happen I would have given her a more creative name. She was so unsettled during those first few days. She hardly ate anything and had such an air of sadness about her. There was nothing I could do to make her happy, it seemed. Heaven knows what had happened to her at her previous owner's. But eventually at the end of the first week she calmed down. Always by my side, whether we were out on one of our long walks or sitting by the fire.
That's why it was such a shock when she pulled away from me one day when we were out for a walk. We were a long way from home, when she started barking and getting very restless. Eventually I couldn't hold her any longer and she raced off down the road towards a farmhouse in the distance as fast as she could.
By the time I reached the farm I was very tired and upset with Goldie. But when I saw her licking (舔) the four puppies (幼犬) I started to feel sympathy towards them. "We didn't know what had happened to her," said the woman at the door. "I took her for a walk one day, soon after the puppies were born, and she just disappeared. " "She must have tried to come back to them and got lost," added a boy from behind her.
I must admit I do miss Goldie, but I've got Nugget now, and she looks just like her mother. And I've learnt a good lesson: not to judge people. How did the author feel about Goldie when Goldie came to the house?
| A．Shocked | B．Sympathetic | C．Annoyed | D．Upset. |
In her first few days at the author's house, Goldie _______.
| A．felt worried | B．was angry | C．ate a little | D．sat by the fire |
Goldie rushed off to a farmhouse one day because she ________.
| A．saw her puppies | B．heard familiar barkings |
| C．wanted to leave the author | D．found her way to her old home |
The passage is organized in order of ________ .
| A．time | B．effectiveness | C．importance | D．complexity |
We all know that everyone becomes a little more forgetful as they get older, but men’s minds decline more than women’s, according to the results of a worldwide survey.
General differences seem to be natural in male and female brains: Men are better at maintaining and dealing with mental images (useful in mathematical reasoning and spatial skills), while women tend to excel be good at recalling information from their brain’s files. Many studies have looked for a connection between sex and the amount of mental decline people experience as they age, but the results have been mixed.
Some studies found more age-related decline in men than in women, while others saw the opposite or even no relationship at all between sex and mental decline.
Those results could be improper because the studies involved older people, and women live longer than men: The men tested are the survivors, “so they’re the ones that may not have shown such cognitive(认知的) decline,” said study team leader Elizabeth of the University of Warwick in England.
Scientists surveyed completed four tasks that tested sex-related cognitive skills: matching an object to its rotated form, matching lines shown from the same angle, typing as many words in a particular category as possible in the given time, e.g. “object usually colored gray”, and recalling the location of objects in a line drawing. The first two were tasks at which men are usually good; the latter are typically dominated by women. Within each age group studied, men and women performed better in their separate categories on average. And though performance declined with age for both genders, women showed obviously less decline than men overall.According to the passage, which of the following can NOT be typed into the same category?
| A．cloud | B．sheep | C．trees | D．goose |
Which of the following statements is true according the article? _______
| A．Men do better than women when it comes to learning English. |
| B．Women stand out at remembering people’s names. |
| C．Women do well in dealing mathematic problems. |
| D．Men excel at typing as many words as possible in the given time. |
One important factor that affects the correctness of the results is that ________.
| A．women live longer than men |
| B．people surveyed are all old |
| C．the old men tested may not have shown such cognitive decline |
| D．people taking part in this test came from all over the world |
The author aims to tell us that _________.
| A．women’s minds perform better than men’s |
| B．men’s minds decline more with age |
| C．everyone becomes a little more forgetful as they get older |
| D．a survey on human’s mind decline was done recently |
Tattoos and body piercings（穿孔）have moved up on the trend list in recent years. Around Western schools lots of teens are sporting new holes and “flesh ink”（纹身）. As with all other subjects, the Chinese will surely have to deal with this situation with respect to their children. To get a better view of what has happened in the West, 1et’s sit down and hear what they say.
Tiara from Indiana：
I personally think body piercing is sickening. If there were supposed to be holes in your body，you would have been born with them. I do，however，think that ear piercing is not wrong. There is a difference between ear piercing and belly button piercing. Ear piercing is not nearly as dangerous. I would be sick if someone stuck a needle in my belly button.
Lee from Illinois:
Hi! I live in Illinois. I am 23. I have 12 tattoos and three piercings. I love my tattoos and consider myself an art collector. You would be surprised at who has given me the thumbs up on my art work. People on the street stop me to look at the tattoo on my leg. Most of them don’t know what it is. They just think the work itself is great.
Subotai from California:
I’m not forbidden of self-expression，but when I see high school students getting these piercings, I really wonder. In some cases, the drive is deeper and darker than mere fashion. A friend of mine tried piercing her own tongue with a safety pin. It got infected and she had a tongue the size of a cow’s.
Jackson from Ohio:
I don’t think it is wrong, but when people do it all over the place like their face and everything—I think that’s ridiculous. People who get the big “dragons that cover the whole body—I don’t think that’s necessary.” When I see naked chicks on guys, I think, “You have no respect for women.” Who doesn’t think tattoos and piercings except ear piercing are beautiful？
| A．Jackson | B．Lee | C．Tiara | D．Subotai |
We can conclude that .
| A．tattoos and piercings are a new kind of elegant art |
| B．all the teachers in the West are in favour of tattoos and piercings |
| C．everything is changeable as time goes on |
| D．it is necessary to live with different views of beauty |
The best title for this passage is probably .
| A．Body Art or Causing Damage |
| B．Doing Damage to the Young People’s Bodies |
| C．Young People’s Different Curiosities |
| D．The Latest Fashion |
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