The TV science-fiction series Star Trek no longer looked far-fetched (牵强的) as four men and four women in black space-suits locked themselves into a giant hi-tech greenhouse, known as a ‘biosphere’, in the Arizona desert yesterday for a two-year study of the environment.
As dawn broke over the Santa Catalina mountains, the eight waved goodbye to television cameras. Edward Ross, their multibillionaire sponsor from a Texas oil family, closed the door of the $150 million structure, with its mini-ocean, marsh, desert, savanna, rain-forest and 3,800 plant and animal species designed to allow the team to recreate Earth and its ecosystems.
The so-called Biosphere 2 is the latest of a dozen environmental projects started by the self-titled ‘ecopreneur’. The project’s main aim is to set up a self-sustaining community for possible use in a spaceship or on another planet. The crew members must plant, harvest and process their food on a half-acre farm in the seven-storey glass and metal structure, while conducting a series of experiments.
‘We will be custodians (监护人) of our new little world,’ said Abigail Mayer, aged 31, a US marine biologist on the team, her voice choking with emotion. ‘It is a brave new step.’ Many scientists, however, are more than skeptical. They point out that the largest closed ecosystem which survived more than a few days was smaller than a football. It was developed at the University of Miami and contained only shrimp, algae and other micro-organisms.
Critics have also accused Mr. Ross of being more interested in producing a profitable theme park than in carrying out serious scientific research. Hundreds of tourists visited the site daily in the summer before it was occupied by the team. They paid $9.95 to enter and all stopped at the souvenir shop.
1.What’s the location of the project?
A. Texas.
B. University of Miami.
C. Arizona desert.
D. The space.
2.What can we infer from the passage?
A. There is a scene in Star Trek where four men and four women locked themselves into giant greenhouse.
B. All the species of plants and animals on the Earth were brought into the greenhouse.
C. Mr. Ross made tourists stop at the souvenir shop to gain profits.
D. Many scientists are doubtful whether this system can last long enough.
3.What’s the author’s attitude towards the project?
A. Critical.B. Neutral.C. Skeptical.D. Supportive.
Generally speaking, college graduation brings both the satisfaction of academic achievement and the expectation of a well-paid job. But for 6,000 graduates at San Jose State this year, there’s uncertainty as they enter one of the worst job markets in decades.
Ryan Stewart has a freshly minted degree in religious studies, but no job prospects. “You look at everybody’s parents and neighbors, and they’re getting laid off and don’t have jobs,” said Stewart. “Then you look at the young people just coming into the workforce.., it’s just scary.”
When those graduates entered college, the future never looked brighter. But in the four years they’ve been here, the world outside has changed dramatically. “Those were the exciting times, lots of dot-com opportunities, exploding offers, students getting top dollar with lots of benefits,” said Cheryl Allmen-Vinnidge, of the San Jose State Career Centre. “Times have changed. It’s a new market. The job situation is grim (严峻的) now.” Cheryl Allmen-Vinnidge ought to know. She runs the San Jose State Career Centre, (it is) sort of a crossroads between college and the real world. Allmen-Vinnidge says students who do find jobs after college have done their homework. “The typical graduate who does have a job offer started working on it two years ago. They’ve postured themselves well during the summer. They’ve had several internships (实习) ,” she said. And they’ve majored in one of the few fields that are still hot—like chemical engineering, accounting or nursing—where average starting salaries have actually increased over last year. Other popular fields (like information systems management, computer science, and political science) have seen big declines in starting salaries.
Ryan Stewart (he had hoped to become a teacher) may just end up going back to school. “I’d like to teach college some day and that requires more schooling, which would be great in a bad economy,” he said.
It is true more students are able to receive college education. It is also true that they will have to face fiercer competition in the job market as they graduate. It becomes harder and harder for the current graduates to get a foothold in job markets, but many of them have no choice but to follow the beaten track. To some students a degree may not be ticket to instant wealth. For now, they can only hope its value will increase over time.
1.What can we learn about Ryan Stewart?
A. He is a teacher.
B. He majored in religious studies.
C. He found a job as soon as he graduated.
D. He is going back to school.
2.Which of the following did NOT happen in the past four years?
A. Dot-corn opportunities decreased.
B. Salaries in chemical engineering increased.
C. The number of teaching jobs increased.
D. The number of jobs with benefits decreased.
3.What does Cheryl Allmen-Vinnidge mean when she says students “have done their homework”?
A. The have found full-time jobs as their future career before graduation.
B. The have gone to summer school for further studies.
C. They are good students who have finished their homework on time.
D. They have spent time preparing themselves to find a job.
4.What’s the meaning of the phrase “get a foothold” in the last paragraph?
A. Gain a safe position from which further advances can be made.
B. Find a place where you can stand.
C. Walk with steady footsteps.
D. Make great progress in a particular area or in a certain job.
The universe looks like a pretty quiet place to live. But the universe is filled with dangerous things, all struggling to be the one to wipe us off the planet. Happily for us, they’re all pretty unlikely, but if you wait long enough, one of them is certain to get us. But which one?
1. Death by Asteroid (小行星)
Of all the ways we might meet our untimely death, getting wiped out by an asteroid is the most likely. Why? Because we sit in a universal shooting gallery, with 100 tons of material hitting us every day. The problem, though, occurs every few centuries when something big this way comes. If you could ask a dinosaur, I’d imagine they would tell you to take this seriously.
2. Death by Exploding Star
When a huge star ends its life, it does so with a bang, which sends death spreading across space in the form of high-energy radiation. Many studies show that the bang would have to be closer than about 75 light years to do us any harm. The good news: no stars so close are able to do the deed.
3. Death by Dying Sun
The sun is important to us; without it, we’d freeze. But the sun is also middle-aged, already halfway to running out of fuel, expanding into a red giant, and cooking us to a fine crisp. Even long before then, it’ll warm up enough to raise our average temperature and cause a runaway greenhouse effect, boiling our oceans.
Happily, that’s a long time from now.
4. Death by Black Hole
Black holes are misunderstood. They don’t wander the galaxy looking for tasty snacks in the form of planets and stars; they turn around the Milky Way just like the hundreds of billions of other stars do. But it’s possible that one could wander too close to us. If it did, planetary paths would be disturbed, causing the Earth to drop into the sun or be thrown out into deep space.
Given that it could be trillions of years or more before even that happens, we don’t have to worry too much about black holes.
My advice? Go outside, look up, enjoy the sun, the moon, and the stars. They may be there forever as far as any one of us is concerned...and forever is a long, long time.
1.The underlined word “this” probably refers to ________.
A. getting wiped out by a dinosaur
B. an untimely death
C. a cosmic shooting gallery
D. 100 tons of material
2.Which of the following will cause the earth’s average temperature to go up dramatically?
A. The dying sun.B. The black hole.
C. The asteroid.D. The exploding star.
3.Which of the following statement is possible about black holes?
A. They wander the galaxy.
B. One of them wanders very close to the earth.
C. They turn around the galaxy.
D. They look for planets and stars.
4.While the author is introducing the ways the universe could wipe out humankind, he is ________ us.
A. warningB. comfortingC. entertainingD. ignoring
“Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy—they’re given after all. Choices can be hard.”
—Jeff Bezos
I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most start-ups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. MacKenzie told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but finally, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision not to try at all.
After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice. For all of us, in the end, we are our choices.
1.What inspired the author with the idea of building an online bookstore?
A. His dream of being an inventor.
B. The support of his wife.
C. Millions of exciting titles.
D. The greatly increasing usage of the Internet.
2.Which of the following is closest in meaning to the underlined sentence?
A. He would be very excited if he tried it out.
B. The idea of not trying would keep coming to his mind and disturb him.
C. He would be always having a doubt if he didn’t try.
D. The decision not to try the online bookstore would terrify him.
3.We can know from the passage that ________.
A. the boss thought the idea was suitable for the author
B. the author might not regret if he failed the idea
C. the author wanted someone else to try the idea
D. the author might go back to his boss if he failed
4.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
A. Cleverness and Kindness
B. The Starting of Amazon
C. We Are What We Choose
D. Following My Passion
假如你是李华，现任你们学校的学生会主席。你将代表学生会起草一份倡议书，号召全校同学行动起来，为环保运动做出自己的努力。同时下周六学校将组织同学在全市进行环保宣传活动，征召志愿者到校学生会报名。
注意：(1)短文应该包括以上所提供的主要信息，可适当发挥;(2)词数：120左右;(3)倡议书格式以提供，不计入总词数;(4)参考词汇：征召(新人) recruit。
25 October, 2016
Dear brothers and sisters,
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Yours sincerely,
Li Hua
Students' Union
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文,请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处错误，每句中最多有两处。错误涉及一个单词的增加，删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用（＼）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1、每处错误及其修改仅限一词；
2、只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
Dear editor，
I'm sorry to occupy your precious time, and I really want to tell you anything about the problem of some people keeping too many pets nowadays. I take the problem more and more seriously for following reasons.
First of all, as it is known to people, pets make so much noise that trouble residents a lot. What's more, it is widely accepted that animal waste pollutes the environment, where makes people quite uncomfortable. Many owners like taking their pets to public place where they may frighten children or even bite people. The mostly important is that pets can spread some diseases and this has attracted much attention.
Take all these factors into consideration, I sincerely hope that I can get help from you and expect the media do something for this.
Yours truly’
Wang Lin
