My father was always a good gardener. One of my earliest memories is standing without shoes in the freshly tilled(翻耕的)soil, my hands blackened from digging in the ground.
As a child, I loved following Dad around in the garden, I remember Dad pushing the tiller(耕作机)ahead in perfectly straight lines. Dad loved growing all sorts of things: yellow and green onions, watermelons almost as big as me, rows of yellow com, and our favorite ― red tomatoes.
As I grew into a teenager, I didn’t get so excited about gardening with Dad. Instead of magical land of possibility, it had turned into some kind of prison. As Dad grew older, his love for gardening never disappeared. After all the kids were grown and had started families of their own, Dad turned to gardening like never before. Even when he was diagnosed with cancer, he still took care of his garden.
But then, the cancer, bit by bit, invaded his body. I had to do the things he used to do. What really convinced me that Dad was dying was the state of his garden that year. The rows and rows of multicolored vegetables were gone. Too tired to weed them, he simply let them be. He only planted tomatoes.
For the first few years after he died, I couldn’t even bear to look at anyone's garden without having strong memories pour over me like cold water from a bucket. Three years ago, I decided to plant my own garden and started out with just a few tomatoes. That morning, after breaking up a fair amount of soil, something caught the comer of my eye and I had to smile, It was my eight-year-old son Nathan, happily playing in the freshly tilled soil.
1.Why did the author like the garden when he was a child?
A. The garden was planted with colorful flowers.
B. The garden was just freshly tilled by his father.
C. He loved what his father grew in the garden.
D. He enjoyed being in the garden with his father.
2.When all the kids started their own families, the author’s father .
A. devoted more to gardening
B. turned to other hobbies
C. stopped his gardening
D. focused on planting tomatoes
3.What happened to the garden when the author’s father was seriously ill?
A. The author’s son took charge of it.
B. No plant grew in the garden at all.
C. The garden was almost deserted.
D. It brought the author a great harvest.
4.We can infer from the last paragraph that .
A. the author’s son played happily in the garden
B. the author’s son reminded him of his own father
C. the author’s son was very glad to help the author
D. the author’s son will continue gardening as well
Science textbooks around the world have become suddenly out of date. Four new chemical elements(元素)have been added to the periodic table. A big decision now lies ahead-elements 113,115,117 and 118 need to be given their official names and symbols.
New elements can be named after a mythical(神话的) concept, a mineral, a place or country, a property(性质) or a scientist. The names have to be unique and maintain ＂historical and chemical consistency＂. This means a lot of ＂-iums＂.
＂They’re Latinising the name,＂ explains chemist Andrea Sella. ＂The most recent tradition is to name them after places or people.＂ The places chosen tend to be where the element was discovered or first produced.
No one has yet named an element after themselves but many elements are named in honour of important scientists. Albert Einstein was given einsteinium. This can also be a way of righting the wrongs of the past. ＂Lise Meitner was really the chemist who spotted nuclear fission(核裂变)but she was never really recognised for it because she was Jewish and a woman, ＂ says Sella. ＂Giving an element a name that reminds us of her is greatly important. ＂
The naming process isn’t quick. The scientists who discovered them will start things off by suggesting a name. But it will be down to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to approve it. A special division of the US-based group has to accept the suggestion. Then there is a public review period of five months before the IUPAC gets the final approval. Once it’s ready, the name is announced in the scientific journal Pure and Applied Chemistry.
Naming an element is not just about functionality. Names are always important.
1.What is the function of Paragraph 1?
A. To introduce the topic.
B. To present a finding.
C. To point out a problem.
D. To call for a decision,
2.Why was Lise Meitner mentioned in the naming process in Paragraph 4?
A. To praise her.
B. To build her reputation.
C. To correct the wrongs of the past.
D. To end racial discrimination
3.Who has the final say in the naming process of an element?
A. The scientist who discovered them.
B. The special division of US-based group.
C. The scientific journal Pure and Applied Chemistry,
D. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.
4.What is the passage mainly about?
A. How elements get their names.
B. Why science textbooks are out of date.
C. How new elements are discovered.
D. How functional naming an element is.
Every human being, no matter what he is doing, gives off body heat. The usual problem is how to get rid of it. But the designers of the Johnstown campus (校园) of the University of Pittsburgh set themselves the opposite problem — how to collect body heat. They havedesigned a collection system which uses not only body heat, but the heat given off by such objects as light bulbs and refrigerators as well. The system works so well that no fuel is needed to make the campus’s six buildings comfortable.
Some parts of most modem buildings — theaters and offices as well as classrooms, are more sufficiently heated by people and lights and sometimes must be air-conditioned (使用空调的) even in winter. The technique of saving heat and redistributing (再分配) it is called ＂heat recovery＂. A few modern buildings recover heat, but the University’s system is the first to recover heat from buildings and reuse it in others.
Along the way, Pittsburgh has learned a great deal about some of its producers. The harder a student studies, the more heat his body gives off. Male students send out more heat than female students, and the larger a student is, the more heat he produces. We may conclude that the hottest prospect for the Johnstown campus would be a hard working overweight mate genius.
1.The heat in the heating system of the Johnstown campus is supplied _____________.
A. by human bodies
B. by both human bodies and other heat-giving objects
C. by both human bodies and commonly used fuel
D. by human bodies, commonly used fuel and other heat-giving objects
2.According to the passage, the technique of heat recovery is used _____________.
A. to find the producers of heat
B. to provide heat for the hot water system
C. to make the campus more beautiful
D. to collect heat and reuse it
3.The underlined phrase ＂the hottest prospect＂ in this passage refers to _____________.
A. the person who suffers most from heat
B. the person who needs more heat than others
C. the person who gives off most heat
D. the person who makes better use of heat
4.Which of the following may be the best title for this passage?
A. A New Heat Recovery System in Pitt
B. Modern Building’s Heat System
C. Body Heat and Its Producers
D. Ways of Heating Building
The government of Norway is planning to build an unusual storage centre on an island in the Arctic Ocean. The place would be large enough to hold about two million seeds. The goal is to present all crops known to scientists. The British magazine New Scientist published details of the plan last month. The structure will be designed to protect the world's food supply against nuclear war, climate change and other possible threats. It will be built in a mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The mountain is less than one thousand kilometres from the North Pole, the northernmost position on earth.
An international group called the Global Crop Diversity Trust is working on the project. The director of the group, Cary Fowler, spoke to New Scientist. He said the project would let the world rebuild agriculture if, in his word, ＂the worst came to the worst＂. Norway is expected to start work next year. The project is expected to cost three million dollars. Workers will drill (钻孔) deep in the side of a sandstone mountain. Temperatures in the area never rise above 0℃.The seeds will be protected behind walls a metre thick and highsecurity door.
The magazine report says the collection will represent the products of ten thousand years of farming. Most of the seeds at first will come from collections at seed banks in Africa, Asia and Latin America. To last a long time, seeds need to be kept in very low temperatures. Workers will not be present all the time. But they plan to replace the air inside the storage space each winter. Winter temperatures on the island are about eighteen degrees below 0℃.The cold weather would protect the seeds even if the air could not be replaced.
Mr Fowler says the proposed structure will be the world’s safest gene bank. He says the plant seeds would only be used when all other seeds are gone for some reason. Norway first put forward the idea in the 1980s. But safety concerns delayed the plan. At that time, the Soviet Union was meeting in Rome of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
1.The project is meant to _____________.
A. increase the world's food output in the future
B. carry out some scientific experiments on plant genes
C. build an exhibition centre of the world’s plant seeds
D. protect crop seeds from dying out in case of possible disasters
2.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the above passage?
A. The government of Norway will perform the project alone.
B. Seeds to be collected there were produced ten thousand years ago.
C. Spitsbergen is chosen because it is free of the nuclear war forever.
D. Temperature is a major consideration when choosing the storage place.
3.We can infer from the text that _____________.
A. Norway had meant to build the storage centre about 30 years before
B. the storage centre will greatly promote world agriculture
C. people will get newlydeveloped seeds from the centre every year
D. there haven't been any seed storage centres in the world before
4.What is probably the best title of the passage?
A. The best place to store seeds
B. Noah’s Ark (诺亚方舟) of plant seeds in plan
C. Concerns of world food supply
D. A new way to feed the world
（题文）After years of heated debate, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves were caught in Canada and transported to the park. By last year, the Yellowstone wolf population had grown to more than 170 wolves.
Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.
The disappearance of the wolves had many unexpected results. Deer and elk populations — major food sources (来源) for the wolf — grew rapidly. These animals consumed large amounts of vegetation (植被), which reduced plant diversity in the park. In the absence of wolves, coyote populations also grew quickly. The coyotes killed a large percentage of the park’s red foxes, and completely drove away the park’s beavers.
As early as 1966, biologists asked the government to consider reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. They hoped that wolves would be able to control the elk and coyote problems. Many farmers opposed the plan because they feared that wolves would kill their farm animals or pets.
The government spent nearly 30 years coming up with a plan to reintroduce the wolvers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carefully monitors and manages the wolf packs in Yellowstone. Today, the debate continues over how well the gray wolf is fitting in at Yellowstone. Elk, deer, and coyote populations are down, while beavers and red foxes have made a comeback. The Yellowstone wolf project has been a valuable experiment to help biologists decide whether to reintroduce wolves to other parts of the country as well.
What is the text mainly about?
A. Wildlife research in the United States.
B. Plant diversity in the Yellowstone area.
C. The conflict between farmers and gray wolves.
D. The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone Park.
Terrafugia Inc. said Monday that its new flying car has completed its first flight, bringing the company closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The vehicle —named the Transition – has two seats, four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car. The Transition, which flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes last month, can reach around 70 miles per hour on the road and 115 in the air. It flies using a 23-gallon tank of gas and burns 5 gallons per hour in the air. On the ground, it gets 35 miles per gallon.
Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will likely rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show. But don’t expect it to show up in too many driveways. It’s expected to cost $279,000.And it won’t help if you’re stuck in traffic. The car needs a runway.
Inventors have been trying to make flying cars since the 1930s, according to Robert Mann, an airline industry expert. But Mann thinks Terrafugia has come closer than anyone to making the flying car a reality. The government has already permitted the company to use special materials to make it easier for the vehicle to fly. The Transition is now going through crash tests to make sure it meets federal safety standards.
Mann said Terrafugia was helped by the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision five years ago to create a separate set of standards for light sport aircraft, which are lower than those for pilots of larger planes. Terrafugia
says an owner would need to pass a test and complete 20 hours of flying time to be able to fly the Transition, a requirement pilots would find relatively easy to meet.
What is the first paragraph mainly about?
A. The basic data of the Transition.
B. The advantages of flying cars.
C. The potential market for flying cars.
D. The designers of the Transition.
