We are obsessed (迷恋)with ourselves. We study our history, our psychology, our philosophy. Much of our knowledge revolves (使旋转)around humankind itself, as if we were the most important thing in the universe.
But in the course of the centuries we have come to realize just how many wrong ideas we’ve had. We have learned of the existence of black holes, waves of space, and of the extraordinary molecular structures in every cell of our bodies.
The more we discover, the more we understand that what we don’t yet know is greater than what we know. The more powerful our telescopes, the stranger and more unexpected are the heavens we see. The closer we look at the minute detail of matter, the more we discover of its profound structure.
In a famous story told by Plato in the seventh book of The Republic, some men are chained at the bottom of a dark cave and see only shadows cast upon a wall by a fire behind them. They think that this is reality. One of them frees himself, leaves the cave and discovers the light of the sun and the wider world. At first the light, to which his eyes are unaccustomed, stuns and confuses him. But eventually he can see and returns excitedly to his companions to tell them what he has seen. They find it hard to believe.
We are all in the depths of a cave, chained by our ignorance, our prejudices, and our weak senses reveal only shadows. If we try to see further, we are confused: we are unaccustomed. But we try. This is science. Scientific thinking explores and redraws the world, gradually offering us better and better images of it, teaching us to think in ever more effective ways. Its strength is its capacity to demolish (推翻)old ideas, to reveal new regions of reality, and to construct new, more effective images of the world. This adventure rests upon the entirety of past knowledge, but at its heart is change.
The incompleteness and the uncertainty of our knowledge, hung over the abyss (深渊) of what we don’t know, does not make life meaningless: it makes it interesting and precious.
1. What does the author want to tell us in the first three paragraphs?| A．The new discoveries of the universe prove to be wrong. |
| B．Man has created splendid cultures in the course of centuries. |
| C．Our knowledge of the universe is incomplete and uncertain. |
| D．The existing technologies are enough for further exploration. |
| A．make us aware of the cruelty of reality |
| B．encourage us to explore the unknown world |
| C．applaud the heroic deeds of chasing freedom |
| D．justify our ignorance and prejudice about the world |
| A．Exploring the universe makes our life meaningful. |
| B．Leaving things as they are makes our life perfect. |
| C．New discoveries of the universe will cause confusion. |
| D．Past knowledge prevents us constructing a new world. |
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【推荐1】Although many years have passed, I still remember the last year of my junior school. I had to prepare for the entrance test, which made me stressed (有压力的). I cried several nights.
When we are feeling very stressed, many of us may feel like crying. Shedding tears is a good way to deal with our “dark” emotions (情绪). When we cry, we are letting go of our stress, I certainly felt better after I had cried. After I had calmed myself down, I reached out to some friends and teachers who encouraged me. I managed to get an offer from a qualified senior school.
With increased competition, it isn’t surprising that many students today are feeling stressed out. Many of us think of our “dark” emotions to be our enemies (敌人). It appears silly for us to be so easily beaten by them. That’s why we might feel too shy to cry. When we are feeling sad, we may also have difficulty asking for help or talking to others.
“Dark” emotions are not in themselves a bad thing. Just like happiness, they are common. But you should certainly find ways to manage them. Try to take part in social events. Eat healthy, balanced meals. Find people who can support you. Exercise regularly. These things can all help. The most important thing, though, is to accept your feelings. They are nothing to be ashamed of.
1. Why did the writer cry when preparing the entrance test?| A．The time passed quickly. | B．He felt worried. |
| C．He missed his junior school. | D．He got little help. |
| A．By crying all the time. | B．By reaching out to family. |
| C．By entering a qualified senior school. | D．By asking friends and teachers for help. |
| A．We are not brave enough to ask for help. |
| B．We are not strong enough and look foolish. |
| C．We are not wise enough to hide our feelings. |
| D．We are not confident enough to talk to others. |
| A．Silly. | B．Useful. | C．Natural. | D．Unsatisfying. |
| A．To offer us some ways to eat healthy. |
| B．To help us to stay away from dark emotions |
| C．To tell us to prepare for the entrance test well. |
| D．To encourage us to accept our feelings, no matter good or bad. |
【推荐2】I’m a travel addict. I think it is very exciting to go to new places, experience different situations and see unfamiliar things. Here’s what I have come up with about why travel is so fascinating.
To start with, whether we know it or not, every day is filled with anxiety about things that we don’t need to worry about in the first place. Going to new places is a chance to keep away from our everyday worries. For example, after a whole day at work, I am often exhausted and start to worry about things. However, the moment I get on the train or bus to my next destination I forget all my tiredness and worries. Next is one of the most important parts in travel: movement. I always take along books to read on my train trips, but in the end, only about five pages or so ever get read, because I was just busy enjoying the things outside the window. Just the ability to move is exciting. Movement also means that we are going to new places and seeing new things. But why is that important? Because people and ideas could help us to learn about new things and grow, especially when we don’t have the burden of everyday worries. I have never gone on a trip and come back as the same person; I have always changed and grown through travel.
So take every type of trip you can, at every chance you get, and you will not only experience more of the world, but will become a happier person with a richer set of experiences.
1. The text is mainly about__________.| A．how to have a comfortable life | B．how to become a travel addicts |
| C．why travel is so attractive | D．how to get rich experiences |
| A．Angry | B．Excited. |
| C．Tired. | D．Weak. |
| A．Because he is attracted by the scenery. |
| B．Because he doesn't like reading on the train. |
| C．Because he is too busy working to read. |
| D．Because he is too tired to read |
| A．it helps us to learn new things | B．it makes us happier people |
| C．it helps us to get more experiences | D．it gives us more chances to read |
【推荐3】Last year，I went to Beijing Qizhi Special Education School for community service(社区服务)．Before we took the bus，my friend asked me a question：“Why are you here？”I did not know how to answer the question.
The school was not far from my school，but it looked like it was in a different world.A group of children were waiting for us.A boy walked toward me.He held my hands and pulled me to the ground.I kissed the earth and tasted nature.
I could not understand what he was doing at first，then I was very angry.Thought I was very angry，I controlled my anger.
A teacher stopped this awkward(尴尬的) silence when she shouted at the boy.“What are you doing right here，right now？”she said.“You will never see your mom again if you keep doing this.Now，say sorry！”“Sorry，”he cried fearfully and nervously.I said nothing，but I realized something about this child.After lunch I asked the teacher for information about the child’s parents.
She said that the child was very different from other students because of an illness.His family could not afford to treat him.He needed the kindness of his family，but they had abandoned him.So he depended on the support from the teachers and community service workers like us.
I suddenly realized I could answer the question my friend asked me at the beginning of the day.
Community service workers help others and make everyone feel better.There are so many people in the world that need help.Playing with lonely children may not make a big difference.But it can light a corner in the children’s hearts，making them know they are loved by people.
1. How did the writer reach Beijing Qizhi Special Education School?| A．By train. | B．By car. |
| C．By bus. | D．By taxi. |
| A．Because a boy held the writer’s hands. |
| B．Because the writer did not like to taste nature. |
| C．Because a boy pushed the writer to the ground. |
| D．Because a boy was impolite to the writer. |
| A．he was sick |
| B．his parents didn’t like him |
| C．he was nervous and fearful |
| D．he always lived with teachers |
| A．hurt | B．left |
| C．sold | D．forgotten |
| A．helped so many people in the world |
| B．played with the lonely boy after lunch |
| C．learned the meaning of community service |
| D．wasn’t good at answering the questions about community service |
【推荐1】Many of us think, wrongly, that the moon doesn’t change. For example, the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ruoxu once wrote that “Generations have come and passed away; From year to year the moons look alike, old and new.”
However, a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience shows that the moon is in fact slowly shrinking over time. For the study, a group of US scientists examined and analyzed thousands of photographs taken by the NASA orbiter Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. They found that there were lots of faults (断层) on the surface of the moon. These faults were formed by recent movement on the moon.
According to NASA, the moon is made up of pieces of rocks with a hot core. The moon continued to expand as it was born. But in this process, it released energy and cooled down. Then it began to shrink, in a way comparable to the shrinking of a grape into a raisin (葡萄干) . Over the past several hundred million years, it has become 46 meters “skinnier”. But due to its hard and rocky crust (外壳), the moon’s surface continues to push up. “Some of these quakes can be fairly strong around five on the Richter scale,” said Thomas Watters, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in the US.
But does that mean the moon is a dangerous place that human shouldn’t try to explore and live on in the future? Maybe not, reported the Telegraph, “This isn’t anything to worry about. The moon may be shrinking, but not by much. It’s not going anywhere,” Watters comforted us.
The new discovery proves that the idea that the moon is a dead, boring place is wrong. “We have been to the moon and we’ve done some great science, but there is still a lot we don’t know. The moon is shrinking — we didn’t really realize that until recently. It’s a much more active and interesting place than we thought and we should explore that,” NASA scientist Nathan Williams said.
1. Why does the writer quote the poem?| A．To praise the beauty of the moon. |
| B．To show people’s long-standing idea of the moon size. |
| C．To arouse people’s interest in the topic. |
| D．To get readers familiar with the poem. |
| A．It is becoming slightly smaller. | B．It stays the same as before. |
| C．It is getting older and older. | D．It may disappear one day. |
| A．It has become 46 meters fatter due to expanding. |
| B．It has changed from a grape into a raisin in recent years. |
| C．It quakes even at seven on the Richter scale. |
| D．It has a hot core and releases energy when expanding. |
| A．Zhang Ruoxu. | B．Thomas Watters. |
| C．Nathan Williams. | D．The journalist. |
| A．It is a dead and boring place. | B．It has lots of faults on the surface. |
| C．It is worth exploring more | D．It isn’t a place where we can live. |
【推荐2】The plan: turn Mars into a blue world with streams and green fields,and then fill it with creatures from the Earth. This idea may sound like something from a science fiction, but it is actually being taken seriously by many researchers. This suggests the future for the “red planet” will be the main topic for discussion at an international conference hosted by NASA this Week. Leading researchers as well as science fiction writers will attend the event. It comes as NASA is preparing a multi-billion-dollar Mars research programme.
“Turning Mars into a little earth has long been a topic in science fiction,” said Dr Michael Mever NASAs senior scientist. “Now with scientists exploring the reality we can ask what the real possibilities of changing Mars.” Most scientists agree that Mars could be turned into a little earth, although much time and money would be needed to achieve this goal. But many experts are shocked by the idea. “We are destroying our own world at an unbelievable speed and now we are talking about ruining another planet,” said Paul Murdin from the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK.
Over the past months, scientists have become increasingly confident they will find Martian life forms. Europe and Americas robot explorers have found the proof that water, mixed with soil, exists in large amounts on the planet.
In addition, two different groups of scientists announced on March 28 that they had found signs of methane (甲烷) in the Martian atmosphere: the gas is a waste product of living creatures and could be produced by microbes (微生物) living in the red planets soil. But scientists such as Dr. Lisa Pratt, a biologist at Indiana University, say that these microbes will be put in danger by the little earth project.
“Before we have even discovered if there is life on Mars, we are talking about carrying out projects that would destroy all these native life forms, all the strange microbes that we hope to find buried in the soil,” said Dr.Pratt.
Monica Grady, a planetary scientist at the Natural History Museum, London, shares this view.“We cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious information we are looking for,” she said. “This is just wrong.”
1. What does the underline word “programme” in paragraph 1 most probably mean?| A．progress |
| B．prepare |
| C．project |
| D．procedure |
| A．Liquid water on Mars. |
| B．Some creatures on Mars. |
| C．A lot of good soil on Mars. |
| D．Signs of methane in Mars’ atmosphere. |
| A．Water is a key factor for life; without it, living on Mars would be impossible. |
| B．The project won’t affect the native life forms supposed to live on Mars. |
| C．The ides turning Mars into a little earth is nothing but science fiction. |
| D．Monica Grady is in favour of carrying out the little earth project. |
| A．A plan turning Mars into a little earth. |
| B．The necessity of changing Mars. |
| C．Finding water on Mars. |
| D．Mars supporting life. |
【推荐3】The sun appears to experience far fewer changes in brightness and intensity than other stars like it. Researchers reported last week on their examination of 369 stars. They compared each one to the sun in terms of surface temperature, size and rotation. They found that on average, the other stars had five times more brightness variability than our sun.
The lead author was Timo Reinhold, an astronomer with the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. He told the Reuters news agency that the variability in brightness results from dark spots on the surface of the star moving in and out of view.
“A direct measure of solar activity is the number of sunspots on the surface,” Reinhold said. “Finding such stars with very similar parameters as our sun but being five times more variable was surprising.”
The sun —made up mainly of hydrogen and helium—is an average-sized star that formed more than 4.5 billion years ago. It stretches about 1.4 million kilometers across and has a surface temperature of 5,500 degrees Celsius.
The researchers compared scientific data on the similar stars to historical records of the sun’s activity. The records included about 400 years of observational data on sunspots. The researchers also studied about 9,000 years of data based on chemical element variants in tree rings and ice buildup tied to solar activity. These records show the sun has not been much more active than it is now.
The researchers said increased magnetic activity related to sunspots can lead to electromagnetic events that effect Earth. For example, large releases of plasma—a collection of charged particles—from outer areas of the sun’s atmosphere could cause problems for satellites and other communications equipment.
The discovery may be good news for life on Earth A much more active sun might have had more major effects on Earth’s geology and ancient climate. “A ‘too active’ star would definitively change the conditions for life on the planet, so living with a quite boring star is not the worst option,” Reinhold said.
The findings, he noted, do not rule out the possibility that the sun may be in a quiet period and could become more variable in the future. However, the researchers say there are no signs that solar activity will be increasing any time soon.
1. According to Timo Reinhold, what causes the variability in brightness of the sun?| A．Hydrogen and helium in the sun. |
| B．The surface temperature of the sun. |
| C．The diameter (直径) of the sun. |
| D．Dark spots on its outer part. |
| A．Scientific data of all the other stars. |
| B．Data of sunspots observed in the past 400 years. |
| C．9,000 years of data of the activities of the sun. |
| D．Data of chemical element variants in icy trees. |
| A．There will be a decreased magnetic activity. |
| B．The geology and climate of the Earth will be different. |
| C．Satellites and other communications equipment will work better. |
| D．People on the Earth have to live with the quite boring star. |
| A．The sun: less active than similar stars |
| B．The sun: less bright and intense than before |
| C．Sun spots: a direct measure of solar activity |
| D．Sun spots: the cause of electromagnetic events on Earth |
