The year 2023 marked the 20th anniversary of China’s first manned space mission, with Yang Liwei becoming the first Chinese astronaut to go to space. Since then, another 17 astronauts have reached for the stars. The selection of the fourth generation of astronauts began in 2022 and is now in full swing. Experts revealed how difficult the training is before astronauts can explore the space.
The human body is not designed for space life. Astronauts are faced with multiple challenges on a space mission. The changes in gravity can have an impact on their bodies. The feeling of isolation and closed living in a small spacecraft for months can damage their mental health. Emergencies during missions challenge their knowledge and ability to solve problems under huge pressure. So it’s no wonder that astronauts have to meet extremely high standards and go through a tough training program.
To make sure that Chinese astronauts complete their missions and return to Earth safely, “Eight types, including over 200 subjects of training, were set,” Huang Weifen, chief designer of the astronaut system for China’s manned space project, told CCTV News. Apart from physical fitness training, it also includes basic scientific theories, psychological health, and mock (模拟的) missions.
Among the training subjects, the most tiring one is underwater training. This training is designed for astronauts to adapt to the microgravity environment in space. According to Huang, astronauts stay underwater in suits weighing over 100 kilograms for six hours at a time. Water resistance (阻力) and the heavy suit make every move exhausting. “Nie Haisheng once reported a two-kilogram loss in weight after one underwatei training exercise,” said Huang. Each astronaut receives training for at least three and a half years before having the chance to go to space.
Who can become astronauts? The first and second generations of Chinese astronauts were selected only from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force. However, since 2018, when the third-generation selection process began, ordinary people have been invited to apply. They can fly with pilot astronauts to space.
1. What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?| A．High standards astronauts need to meet. | B．Health problems caused by microgravity. |
| C．Requirements of the tough astronaut training. | D．Different challenges astronauts face in space. |
| A．Mock mission. | B．Underwater training. |
| C．Physical fitness training. | D．Scientific theory learning. |
| A．To stress how challenging the training is. | B．To describe Nie’s personal achievements. |
| C．To introduce the weight limit for astronauts. | D．To explain the importance of proper training. |
| A．The Qualities of Being an Astronaut | B．Astronauts Faced with Multiple Challenges |
| C．Preparing the Mind and Body for Space | D．The 20th Anniversary of China’s Space Mission |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】The Poetry Foundation, recently named American poet Jack Prelutsky as the nation's first children's poet laureate (桂冠诗人). The group created the award as a way to increase children's love of poetry.
As children's poet laureate, Jack Prelutsky will give two public readings in the next two years. He will also advise the Poetry Foundation about children's literature and take part in projects concerning children and poetry.
Jack Prelutsky has been writing poetry for children for almost forty years. He has written more than thirty five books of poems. His first book was called A Gopher in the Garden. It was published in 1967. His latest is called Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant and Other Poems.
Jack Prelutsky is well known for creating new words by combining two words to create a new kind of creature. For example, he combined “radish” with “shark” to get “radishark”. “Lion” and “broccoli” became “broccolion”. He also created “umbrellaphant”, a mixture of the words “umbrella” and “elephant”.
Jack Prelutsky says that children like his poems because he writes about things they care about. Poetry researchers say that Jack Prelutsky's poems recognize children's feelings. An example of this is the poem My Sister Is a Werewolf which is about how it feels to be different.
Jack Prelutsky also writes poems about American holidays. His poem It's Halloween is a very famous one about the holiday celebrated at the end of October.
1. Which of the following can be the BEST title of the passage?| A．Poems with New Words Grow Popular | B．First Children's Poet Laureate Named |
| C．Children's Love for Poetry Increased | D．Jack Prelutsky Awarded Nationwide |
| A．Creating new words in his poems. | B．His productivity. |
| C．His long time of writing. | D．His poems about American holidays. |
| A．It was A Gopher in the Garden that brought him fame. |
| B．The poet will be kept busy over a lot of activities. |
| C．Jack Prelutsky will no longer write about American holidays. |
| D．The poem It's Halloween must have been written for adults. |
a. two public readings
b. A Gopher in the Garden
c. Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant and Other Poems
d. My Sister Is a Werewolf
| A．b—c—d—a | B．d—a—c—b |
| C．b—d—c—a | D．a—b—c—d |
LOVE it or hate it, there is no escape from Internet slang.
This is especially true among young people in some English-speaking countries such as Australia, the UK and the US. These days, if they haven’t caught up with the latest popular Internet slang, chances are that they often feel out of the loop on social media.
Take these posts by The Washington Post for example: “David Bowie dying is totes tradge” and “When Cookie hugged Jamal it made me totes emosh.”
What on earth do these mean? Well, “totes” is a short form of the adverb “totally”. Likewise, “tradge” means “tragic” and “emosh” means “emotional”.
It seems that, for millennials (those born between the early 1980s and late 1990s), typing in this abbreviated form is not only time-saving but also hip.
Many millennial slang words are formed by what linguists call the practice of “totesing” – the systematic abbreviation of words, according to a recent article in The Washington Post.
Some people think that millennial slang affects the English language negatively. However, Melbourne University linguist Rosey Billington doesn't agree.
“When you are able to use language in a creative way, you show you are linguistically knowledgeable because you know the language rules well enough to use words in a different way,” Billington told News.com.au.
Her view is backed up by two linguists, Lauren Spradlin and Taylor Jones, from the City University of New York and the University of Pennsylvania respectively. The two believe that totes-speak is a highly-organized system that can only be used by speakers who have mastered English pronunciation.
The ability to break apart syllables and mix different sounds together is key. “Totesing is about sounds, and it follows the sometimes-complicated sound system of English,” Jones told The Washington Post. “Totesing is not random. On the contrary, it has strict rules to follow. You need to be very fluent in the English language to be able to understand totes-speak.”
1. The underlined phrase “out of the loop” in the second paragraph probably means ________.| A．accepted easily |
| B．bored and annoyed |
| C．comfortable and relaxed |
| D．unaware of certain information |
| A．With comparisons. |
| B．Through examples. |
| C．By giving descriptions. |
| D．By analyzing causes and effects. |
| A．Worried. | B．Cautious. | C．Positive. | D．Critical. |
| A．Internet slang is mostly created by professional linguists. |
| B．Totesing is mainly about making words easier to pronounce. |
| C．Totesing should be promoted since it is cool, creative and time-saving. |
| D．Totesing requires speakers to master the language’s rules very well. |
【推荐3】U. S. Open Championships
The US Open has been in existence for almost 140 years. The first tournament was held in 1881 at the Newport Casino. It was called the US National Singles Championship. Entry was limited to only those clubs which were members of the United States National Lawn Tennis Association, and the competitors were all male, competing in both single and doubles. Richard Sears won the men’s championship and he went on to win the next six men’s singles championships.
The Wimbledon
In 1875, the All England Croquet Club was troubled financially due to declining membership. A new sport called lawn tennis was gaining fast in popularity and taking away the members. Two years later, a new roller was needed for maintaining its lawns so the club proposed to hold a tournament to raise money. Twenty-two players entered that first Wimbledon tournament which was won by Spencer Gore in straight sets over W. C. Marshall. Two hundred spectators each paid a shilling to watch the final game, enabling the club to buy the needed roller plus some extra cash.
The French Open
The very first French Championship was held way back in 1891, and the tournament has since grown into one of the four tennis Grand Slam tournaments we know today. The first competition was a one-day national championship which was won by a British. The competition was poorly attended by world class players. It took 24 years before it became fully international and an accepted tennis grand slam event. After the First World War, French tennis was achieving stature（重要性）. Suzanne Lenglen was the predominant（卓越的）French player, winning the championships six times between 1920 and 1926.
The Australian Open
The very first tennis tournament ever played in Australia was held in January 1880, on the courts of the Melbourne Cricket Club. In 1905, the Australian Open was established as the Australasian Tennis Championship and was played at the Warehouseman’s Cricket Ground in Melbourne. It became the Australian Championship in 1927 and the Australian Open in 1969. Women’s events were added in 1922.
1. What do we know about the first U. S. Open?| A．It was sponsored and organized by a tennis club. |
| B．Only men were allowed to play in the game. |
| C．Richard Sears won six men’s championships. |
| D．It has remained the same through all these years. |
| A．raise some fund for a lawn roller |
| B．attract more people to play tennis |
| C．celebrate the renaming of the club |
| D．make the game more enjoyable |
| A．the tournament has been played in the same place all these years |
| B．twenty-two players played in the first tournament |
| C．few good tennis players took part in the first French Championship |
| D．the players played in singles and doubles in the tournament |
| A．they were all born in the same year |
| B．they have all experienced financial difficulties |
| C．they all had only male players at the beginning |
| D．they all have had a history of 130 years or more |
| A．how the four international tennis tournaments came into being |
| B．how long it took for women to play in the tennis tournaments |
| C．what the international tennis tournaments brought to the world |
| D．why the tennis tournaments are held in these four countries |
【推荐1】The development of China’s space program was first suggested in 1956 by the father of Chinese rocket science, Qian Xuesen (1911-2009). As a result of extensive preparation and planning, the Shenzhou crewed program began in 1992, and the first Chinese astronaut, Yang Liwei, went into space in 2003. Chang’e-1, a lunar orbiter was launched in 2007, while Tiangong-1, an experimental crewed space station was launched in 2011.
In 2019, Chang’e-4 made a soft landing on the far side of the moon. It was mankind’s first successful soft landing on the far side of the moon. A “soft” landing is one where the spacecraft lands in a controlled way, and gets no damage. Twelve hours later, the small Yutu-2 rover12 was released. To understand why Chang’e-4’s soft landing was such an achievement, consider the difficulty of any space mission, especially one to the far side of the moon. While the far side of the moon is often called the dark side of the moon, it is not really dark.
The main problem with landing on the far side of the moon is communication. There is no clear line of sight between the far side of the moon and the Earth. This normally makes radio communication with spacecraft on the far side of the moon impossible. Chinese engineers came up with a unique solution. Before Chang’e-4’s mission (任务), they sent the Queqiao communications satellite into space. When engineers needed to communicate with Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2, they could send radio messages to Queqiao. The messages would then be sent from the satellite down to the Lander and rover. This allowed for contact between Earth and the far side of the moon.
One of the experiments of Chang’e-4’s mission was designed to test a closed ecological (生态的) system that could be extremely important for long-term space missions: The plants produce food and oxygen for the fruit flies, while the fruit flies produce carbon dioxide for the plants. This experiment worked for nine days, but it had to be stopped when the temperatures dropped below -52°C.
1. According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?| A．The first Chinese astronaut, Yang Liwei, went into space in 2007. |
| B．Qian Xuesen is considered the father of the Chinese space program. |
| C．The development of space program in China started in ancient times. |
| D．The Chinese space program has been advancing with preparation and planning. |
| A．Because Chang’e-4 landed on the moon successfully. |
| B．Because Chang’e-4 made a soft landing on the dark side of the moon. |
| C．Because man had never landed on the moon with the difficulty of space mission. |
| D．Because it was the first time that humans had landed on the moon without any damage. |
| A．It got too dark to continue. |
| B．The Lander no longer had power. |
| C．It got too cold for the experiment to work. |
| D．There was not enough oxygen on the moon. |
| A．A story book | B．A textbook |
| C．A science fiction | D．A magazine |
【推荐2】The world’s first luxury space hotel, Aurora Station, was announced Thursday at the Space 2. 0 Summit in San Jose, California. Developed by US-based space technology start-up Orion Span, the space station will host six people at a time, including two crew members, for 12-day trips of space travel. It plans to welcome its first guests in 2022.
“Our goal is to make space accessible to all,” Frank Bunger, CEO and founder of Orion Span, said in a statement. “Upon launch, Aurora Station goes into service immediately, bringing travelers into space quickly and at a lower price point than ever seen before.”
While a $10 million trip is outside the budget of most people’s two-week vacations, Orion Span claims to offer an authentic astronaut experience. “It has taken what was historically a 24-month training to prepare travelers to visit a space station and streamlined (精简) it to three months, at a fraction (小部分) of the cost,” says Bunger. During their 12-day adventure, the super-rich travelers will fly at a height of 200 miles above the Earth’s surface in Low Earth Orbit, where they will witness incredible views of the blue planet. The hotel will orbit Earth every 90 minutes, which means guests will see around 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours.
Activities on board include taking part in research experiments such as growing food while in orbit, which guests can take home for a super-smug souvenir, and soaring over their hometown. Guests can have-live-video chats with their less-fortunate loved ones back home via high-speed wireless Internet access and, upon returning to Earth will be greeted with a specially arranged hero’s welcome. While enjoying the thrills of zero gravity, the travelers will be able to float freely through the hotel, taking in views of the northern and southern aurora from the station’s windows.
Deposits are already being accepted for future stays on the space hotel.
1. What can we know about Aurora Station?| A．It was set up in San Jose, California. |
| B．It is created by an international company. |
| C．It will host eight people at a time. |
| D．It won’t be put into operation until 2022. |
| A．To popularize the astronaut experience. |
| B．To make profits through this new industry. |
| C．To cut down the cost for space research. |
| D．To arouse the public’s awareness of science. |
| A．All human beings. | B．Would-be astronauts. |
| C．Wealthy travelers. | D．Specially trained researchers. |
| A．Getting involved in scientific experiments. |
| B．Having live video chats with people on earth. |
| C．Being greeted with a specially arranged welcome. |
| D．Floating freely through the hotel with zero gravity. |
【推荐3】The three astronauts on the Shenzhou XIV mission returned to Earth on Sunday evening after a six-month mission that completed the in-orbit assembly of the Tiangong space station.
A re-entry capsule carrying the crew — Senior Colonel Chen Dong, the mission commander, Senior Colonel Liu Yang and Senior Colonel Cai Xuzhe — touched down on Earth at the Dongfeng Landing Site in northwestern China’s Gobi Desert at 8:09 p.m. after flying nearly nine hours in a re-entry orbit. This has become the first time that Chinese astronauts have returned to Earth at night. Ground recovery personnel soon opened the hatch (舱口) of the capsule and then conducted basic examination on the astronauts’ condition. The crew members told them that they “are feeling very good.”
After preparatory work, ground personnel carried out the astronauts one by one to place them onto chairs in front of the capsule. A lot of equipment used in the recovery operation had been added with additional cold-proof layers to resist against the chilly temperatures in the landing region, as low as minus 14 degrees Celsius. In their chairs, the astronauts shared their feelings with a group of domestic reporters, saying they are proud of the motherland and the country’s space programs. Then they were moved into special care vehicles to take health checks. Carrying Chen’s team, the Shenzhou XIV spacecraft separated from the Tiangong station at 11:01 a.m. on Sunday. On Friday evening, the Shenzhou XIV team handed over the control of the Tiangong station to the Shenzhou XV crew.
Chen’s crew is the third group of visitors to the Chinese station, one of the largest pieces of infrastructure that mankind has ever arranged in Earth’s orbit. The three astronauts were launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwestern Gobi Desert on June 5 and arrived at Tiangong later that day.
After the departure of Shenzhou XIV, the Tiangong station currently consists of the Tianhe core module, the Wentian and Mengtian lab modules, the Shenzhou XV spacecraft and the Tianzhou 5 cargo ship. The station is now manned by the Shenzhou XV mission crew — Major General Fei Junlong, Senior Colonel Deng Qingming and Senior Colonel Zhang Lu, who arrived on Wednesday.
1. What can we know according to Paragraph 2?| A．Chinese astronauts have returned to Earth at night before. |
| B．The astronauts were in good condition when landing on the earth. |
| C．One astronaut was still in the space station to continue the mission. |
| D．Upon getting out of the capsule, the astronauts were rushed to hospital. |
| A．They wrapped equipment with cold-proof layers. |
| B．They carried out the astronauts from the capsule. |
| C．They shared their feelings with domestic reporters. |
| D．They sent the three astronauts to take health checks. |
| A．Current situations of the Tiangong station. |
| B．Problems faced by the Tiangong Station. |
| C．New missions for the Shenzhou XV crew. |
| D．Future arrangement of the Tiangong Station. |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Health. | C．Education. | D．Science. |
