The idea of being able to walk on water has long interested humans greatly. Sadly, biological facts prevent us ever accomplishing such a thing without artificial aid--we simply weigh too much, and all our mass pushes down through our relatively small feet, resulting in a lot of pressure that makes us sink.
However, several types of animals can walk on water. One of the most interesting is the common basilisk. Basilicus, a lizard (蜥蜴) native to Central and South America. It can run across water for a distance of several meters, avoiding getting wet by rapidly hitting the water's surface with its feet. The lizard will take as many as 20 steps per second to keep moving forward. For humans to do this, we'd need huge feet that we could bring up to our ears in order to create adequate "hitting. “
But fortunately there is an alternative: cornflour. By adding enough of this common thickening agent to water (and it does take a lot), you can create a "non-Newtonian" liquid that doesn't behave like normal water. Now, if the surface of the water is hit hard enough, particles(微粒) in the water group together for a moment to make the surface hard. Move quickly enough and put enough force into each step, and you really can walk across the surface of an adequately thick liquid of cornflour.
Fun though all this may sound, it's still rather messy and better read about in theory than carried out in practice, if you must do it, then keep the water wings handy in case you start to sink--and take a shower afterward!
1.Walking on water hasn't become a reality mainly because humans _______.
A. are not interested in it
B. have biological limitations
C. have not invented proper tools
D. are afraid to make an attempt
2.What do we know about Basilicus from the passage?
A. It is light enough to walk on water.
B. Its huge feet enable it to stay above water.
C. It can run across water at a certain speed.
D. Its unique skin keeps it from getting wet in water
3. What is the function of the cornflour according to the passage?
A. To create a thick liquid.
B. To turn the water into solid.
C. To help the liquid behave normally.
D. To enable the water to move rapidly.
4.What is the author's attitude toward the idea of humans' walking on water?
A. It is risky but beneficial.
B. It is interesting and worth trying.
C. It is crazy and cannot become a reality.
D. It is impractical though theoretically possible.
When the swim season began, my 11-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and I cut a deal. She would go to practice three times a week, and I wouldn’t make her compete in swim meets.
Elizabeth does not like swim meets. She gets horribly nervous because she is afraid that she will do something wrong and let everyone down. She started to talk about quitting swimming, which broke my heart because she loves swimming. So I came up with the deal.
Recently, Elizabeth’s team announced a T-shirt relay, which works like this: One person from each relay team puts on a T-shirt and a pair of socks and swims 50 meters. She takes off the clothes and put them on the next person, who then swims 50 meters. This continues until everyone on the team has completed a lap.
It wasn’t exactly a meet, because it would involve only team members. But Elizabeth thought it was. I told Elizabeth I really wanted her to go. She fought back angrily but finally agreed.
When the day for the T-shirt relay arrived, Elizabeth was nervous. She was chosen to swim the anchor leg (最后一棒).By the last leg, Elizabeth’s team had built up a narrow lead. Then it was Elizabeth’s turn to swim.
Approaching the halfway mark, she was still in the lead. Then somebody noticed that one of Elizabeth’s socks had fallen off and was floating in the pool. “She has to get that sock on before the end of the race,” a swimming official told Elizabeth’s team, “or you will be disqualified.”
Everybody on her team started shouting, “Elizabeth! Get the sock!” But she couldn’t hear them. Meanwhile, a girl in lane two was gaining on Elizabeth. Just then, a girl on my daughter’s team jumped in the pool, grabbed the sock, swam after Elizabeth and put the sock on Elizabeth.
With the sock finally on, Elizabeth swam her heart out for the last 15 meters and won! There was much celebration. And, for a few minutes, Elizabeth was the hero.
On the ride home, she relived her moment of glory again and again. She told me that if the T-shirt relay was an Olympic event, her team would win the gold medal, I told her that in my professional opinion, she was absolutely right.
1.What do we know about the T-shirt relay?
A. Elizabeth was eager to attend it.
B. Elizabeth made full preparations for it.
C. Elizabeth thought she was sure to fail the relay.
D. Elizabeth agreed to attend it after a lot of persuasion.
2.What happened to Elizabeth when she was swimming the anchor leg?
A. The girl on the other team swam faster than her.
B. She was disqualified for breaking the rule.
C. She was too nervous to swim.
D. One of her socks fell off.
3.We can infer from the last paragraph that Elizabeth_____.
A. believed she was the best of her team.
B. hoped to take part in the Olympics.
C. overcame her fear of swim meets.
D. was grateful for the girl’s help.
4. What would be the best title for the text?
A. Born to be a swimmer B. Swimming in socks
C. The swim season D. Never give up!
Three Japanese tourists taking a holiday in Australia got stuck when their GPS told them they could drive from the mainland to an island, failing to mention the 15 kilometres of water and mud in between.
As they drove their hired car from Moreton Bay to nearby North Stradbroke Island, they started to notice the firm surface they were driving on giving way to the well-known bay mud. However, being confident that their GPS would direct them to a road soon, they decided to drive on, managing to travel around 500 metres before their car was up to its tires in mud. To make matters worse, the tide(潮汐) started to come in and soon forced them to seek help and abandon the vehicle. Just four hours later the car was trapped in two metres of water — to the great amusement of onlookers on the shore and passengers on passing boats and ferries.
Yuzu Noda, 21, said she was listening to the GPS and “it told us we could drive down there. It kept saying it would navigate(导航) us to a road. But we got stuck…there’s lots of mud.” She and her travel companions Tomonari Saeki, 22, and Keita Osada, 21, instead had to give up their plans for a day trip to the island and headed back to the Gold Coast of a lift from the RACQ tow truck(吊车) driver who was called to the trapped car. No such luck for the hired car though – after assessing the situation, no attempt was made to recover it. The students from Tokyo, who are due to return home tomorrow, said the experience would not put them off returning to Australia for another visit. Mr. Tomonari said, “It has rained every day on our six day holiday. Hopefully next time we come back, it will be sunny.”
The car was covered by insurance, but the tourists will have to pay up to about $1500 in extra charges.
1.The three Japanese tourists got stuck because___________.
A. there was no way to the island
B. their GPS was broken during their journey
C. their GPS had given the wrong information
D. their car was not made in Japan
2.They didn’t abandon their car until _________.
A. some onlookers went to save them
B. they got stuck in the mud
C. there came the tide
D. they managed to travel around 500 metres
3.How did these Japanese students get back?
A. They had to walk back to their living place.
B. They had to take a lift from the tow truck driver.
C. They had to repair their GPS and drove back.
D. They had to turn to passengers on boats and ferries.
阅读下面的短文，然后按照要求写一篇150词左右的英语短文。
Right after the Second World War, Germany was in ruins. Almost all the houses, factories and schools were destroyed. Plenty of people were homeless as well as jobless. Worse still, the supply of water and electricity was often cut off in the city. Two American journalists interviewed a German family living in the basement. The husband was disabled from the war and the wife was just dismissed from a clothing company. Worse still, there were bills for them to pay—four children to care for and food to buy. Life was hard for them at that time.
After the interview, the journalists chatted with each other on the way back to the company.
“Do you think the Germans could rebuild their homeland?”
“Absolutely.”
“But I can’t see any hope for the country at all. How can you be so certain about that?”
“Have you noticed what they put on the table in the basement? There was a vase of flowers. A nation, suffering at such moment, hasn’t forgotten about flowers. It shows that hopes are not lost. They are still able to dream. A nation with hope can create miracles. They are sure to be able to rebuild their homeland.”
【写作内容】
1. 以约30个词概括上文的主要内容；
2. 以约120个词就梦想改变命运的话题谈谈你的想法，内容包括：
(1) 你赞同文中的观点吗？
(2) 举例证明你赞同或不赞同的原因；
(3) 谈谈你对梦想的看法以及你如何为实现梦想而努力。
【写作要求】
1. 作文中可以使用亲身经历或虚构的故事，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，但不得直接引用原文中的句子；
2. 作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称。
【评分标准】 概括准确，语言规范，内容合适，语篇连贯。
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任务型阅读,请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。注意：每个空格只填1个单词。请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。
Antibiotics, insulin, organ transplantation, HIV treatments and heart-bypass surgeries—it reads like an A to Z of medical progress. But the major progress has something in common: they were all developed and tested by using animals. Actually, animals are used for research in a variety of settings. Whether or not humans should use animals for testing purposes, however, is a controversial subject.
Animal testing allows researchers to develop new medicine and treatments, advancing the field of medicine and improving the health of society. For example, many drugs used to treat or prevent cancer, HIV, diabetes, etc, have resulted from tests performed on animals. Many advocators of animal testing support the practice for this reason, even if they do not support testing, cosmetics or other non-essential substances on animals. No one chooses to use animals where there in no need. In fact, animal research has contributed to 70 percent of Nobel prizes for physiology or medicine.
Animal testing also enables scientists and researchers to test the safety of medicine and other substances with which humans have regular contact. Drugs, for example , may create significant risks to humans, so testing them on animals first gives researchers a chance to determine their safety before human trials are performed. While scientists understand the differences between humans and animals, the similarities are considered significant enough to produce relevant data that they can then apply to humans. This, animal testing reduces harm to humans and saves lives, not only because the exposure to risky substances is minimized, but because some new medicine and treatments have positive effects on humans’ overall quality of life.
However, a significant number of animals are harmed or die as a result of experiments and testing. Unfortunately, many of the substances used on animal subjects never receive approval for human use or consumption. Those who oppose animal testing consider this a very important point , because saving humans from suffering is no excuse for the death of laboratory animals. Opponents also argue that animals are dissimilar enough from humans to make the results of animals tests unreliable. Related criticism is that testing causes stress in animals, meaning that they do not react to experimental substances in the same way that they might in natural circumstances, making the results of experiments less valid
Using animals as research subjects is also expensive because they require food, shelter, care and treatment in addition to the costs of experimental substances. Long-term or multi-stage tests can increase the costs of the practice as well. The actual price paid for animals is also worth considering. In this respect, researchers take on an additional burden.
Title | Should Humans Experiment on Animals? | |
Introduction | Many __1.___ have been made on medical research by using animal testing | |
__2.______ about animal testing | People _3._____ up for it | New medicine and treatments can be developed. Advancements in the field of medicine and _4._________ in humans’ health can be made. Researchers can __5._____patients the safety of new treatments and medicine. Scientists can collect research data in ____6.______ with humans’ medical problem. Harm done to humans will be reduced to the 【小题7___ and more lives will be saved. |
People opposing it | The experiments may put many animals’ lives at _7._______. Experiments may not ____8.____ produce reliable results because animals do not react normally under stress. Researchers will be __9._______ with the extra costs of animals and their care. | |
For some years the big drugmakers have been worrying about an approaching "patent cliff"—a fall in sales as the patents on their most popular pills expire or are struck down by legal challenges, with few new potential blockbusters to take their place. This week the patent on the best-selling drug in history expired—Lipitor, an anti-cholesterol pill which earned Pfizer nearly $11 billion in revenues last year.In all, pill like Lipitor with a combined $170 billion in annual sales will go off-patent by the end of 2015.
What is supposed to happen now is that lots of copycat firms rush in with "generic" (ie, chemically identical) versions of Lipitor at perhaps one-fifth of its price.Patients and health-care payers should reap the benefit.Pfizer's revenues should suffer. The same story will be repeated many times, as other best-selling drugs march over the patent cliff
But generics makers may face delays getting their cheaper versions to market.Ranbaxy, a Japanese-owned drugmaker, struggled to get regulators' approval for its generic version of Lipitor, and only won it on the day the patent expired.More importantly, research-based drug firms are using a variety of tactics to make the patent cliff slope more gently. Jon Leibowitz, chairman of America's Federal Trade Commission (FTC), is concerned by drugmakers filing additional patents on their products to put off the day when their protection expires.
Another tactic(策略) is "pay-for-delay", in which a drugmaker facing a legal challenge to its patent pays its would-be competitor to put off introducing its cheaper copy. In the year to October the FTC identified what it believes to be 28 such settlements. American and European regulators are looking into these deals. However, legal challenges against them have been delayed, and a bill to ban them is stuck in Congress.
To encourage generics makers to challenge patents on drugs, and introduce cheaper copies,
an American law passed in 1984 says that the first one to do so will get a 180-day exclusivity period,in which no other generics maker can sell versions of the drug in question, as Ranbaxy supposedly won with Lipitor.
However, Pfizer is exploiting a loophole(空子) in the 1984 law, which lets it appoint a second, authorised copycat—in this case, Watson, another American firm.According to BernsteinResearch, under the deal between the two drugmakers Pfizer will receive about 70% of Watson's revenues from its approved copy of Lipitor.More unusual, Pfizer has cut the price of its original version, and will keep marketing it vigorously. So Ranbaxy faces not one, but two competitors.
All this may raise Pfizer's sales by nearly $500m in the last half of 2015 compared with what they would otherwise have been, says Tim Anderson of BernsteinResearch, with revenues then falling after the 180 days are over. Others fear that Pfizer's tactics , if copied, will make the 180-day exclusivity period worth far less, and thus discourage generic firms from challenging patents in the first place.
1.The underlined word “blockbusters” in Paragraph 1 refers to “_______’
A. pills that sell very well
B. new patents to appear
C. drugmakers to compete with Pfizer
D. challenges which Pfizer has to face
2.What is the tactic mentioned in Paragraph 4?
A. Legal challenges against expired patents have been paid for putting off the cheaper copy.
B. Bills to prohibit generic makers have been stuck in Congress.
C. Drugmakers try to spend money delaying filing additional patents on popular pills
D. Patent-holders give possible competitors money to prevent more losses.
3.Pfizer exploit a loophole in the 1984 law mainly by ________.
A.marketing Lipitor more actively
B. making the price of Lipitor go up
C. cooperating with Watson to beat Ranbaxy
D. encouraging Watson to produce cheaper copies
4. How many tactics are adopted by patent-holders in the passage?
A. Two B. Three C. Four D. Five
5.Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?
A. Drugmakers’ struggle
B. Generic makers’ dilemma
C. Laws concerning patent protection
D. Popular pills of Pfizer
