It’s 2050. The Earth is dying, and moving to Mars seems to the only way out for humans. A team of American astronauts (宇航员) begin to search on Mars. This is what the movie Red Planet begins with. Known as the Red Planet, Mars is the favourite of writers and filmmakers.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the next planet beyond the Earth. Mars is the only planet whose surface can be seen from the Earth. It is about half size of our planet.
The surface of Mars is more like the Earth than any other planet. But it is further from the Sun than the Earth, so temperatures on Mars are much lower. Plants and animals can not live now on Mars. But many scientists still believe that such life may have been on Mars long ago.
On 6th August, 1996, scientists discovered a piece of rock from Mars, which fell to the Earth 13,000 years ago. 10 years later, some scientists still didn’t accept that there was life on Mars. People may not be sure about life on Mars until a sample (样本) of life is brought back. Some further researches are being done in many countries. If you want to know more, please click www. space exploration. com.
1. Why is the movie Red Planet mentioned?| A．To advise readers to go to Mars. | B．To compare Mars with the Earth. |
| C．To introduce the topic. | D．To tell stories about American astronauts. |
| A．Mars is bigger than the Earth in size. |
| B．The surface of Mars is similar to that of the Earth. |
| C．The temperatures are much higher on Mars. |
| D．Mars is one of the planets whose surfaces can be seen from the Earth. |
| A．There was life on Mars. | B．A piece of rock from Mars is discovered. |
| C．Plants and animals could live on Mars. | D．There was no life on Mars. |
| A．a website | B．a notice | C．a tour guide | D．a diary |
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【推荐1】Stop reading for a minute and think about what you see when you look up at the sky on a clear night. You probably see many stars. Long long ago, farmers watched some stars to know when to plant their crops. Travelers did so to find their way in the dark.
Today stars are still important to some people. Scientists find that most stars are very big. Actually, some stars are so far away that it would take millions of years to get to them even by spaceship. Another thing we know today about stars is that some are made up of (由…组成) hot gases (气体). The gases are so hot that they send out light. If you watch a star carefully, you may notice that it twinkles (闪烁) sometimes. As you may understand, light from a star must shine through the air before you can see the star. Air is always moving, it makes light from the star move back and forth. When the light moves, it makes the star twinkle. Stars also have different colors. The colors of a star depend on how hot it is. To our surprise, the cool stars are red and the hottest stars are white.
1. Farmers watched stars to ________.| A．find their way in the dark | B．know when to plant crops |
| C．travel by spaceship | D．know more about stars |
| A．hot | B．cold | C．warm | D．cool |
| A．向左 | B．向右 | C．向前 | D．向后 |
| A．Its light travels through the moving air. | B．Its light is too bright. |
| C．It is made up of hot gases. | D．It is too dark. |
| A．Today stars are not important to people at all. |
| B．It takes us a short time to get to the stars by spaceship. |
| C．You can see the star before it shines through the air. |
| D．Not all stars are made up of hot gases. |
【推荐2】In many science fiction (科幻) movies, men travel to faraway stars and even fight with aliens. But are there real aliens in the universe (宇宙)? The answer of some scientists is yes. So they have been searching for aliens in outer space for many years. They hope io find life signs of aliens.
Some scientists are used to using radio telescopes (望远镜) to search for aliens in space. In order to find aliens, they have worked hard for over half a century, but so far they have found nothing. Then some scientists guessed aliens might not want to connect us, but aliens could answer our messages. So some scientists sent radio signals into the universe. They hope one day they would be picked up by alien technology. These scientists want to prove (证明) that we are not alone in the universe.
But what should we do if the “alien phone” rings one day? Should we answer it? Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist, thought it could be dangerous to connect aliens. He said that the main purpose of aliens’ visiting to our solar system could be searching for our resources (资源). But other scientists think we have no need to worry. David Morrison. a NASA scientist, said, “If an alien radio signal reaches the earth from a planet thousands of light-years away, then they almost surely have solved all the problems we still have including the short of resources. Maybe they are much smarter than us, but why don’t they hurt us? I think we can try to connect them.”
根据短文内容，选择最佳答案
1. ______ scientists believe there are aliens.
| A．Few | B．Some | C．Most | D．All |
| A．more than 50 years | B．50 years | C．40 years | D．30 years |
| A．Aliens are dangerous. | B．Aliens are friendly. |
| C．Aliens can’t be found. | D．Aliens have been on the earth. |
| A．Because we want to find aliens. | B．Because aliens are much smarter than us. |
| C．Because we want to help aliens. | D．Because aliens have many skills. |
| A．How to Use Radio Telescope. | B．Stephen Hawking’s Idea. |
| C．Protect Our Earth. | D．Are We Alone? |
【推荐3】A black hole is a place in outer space with very strong gravity. Gravity is a great force（力量） that shapes the universe. On Earth, gravity makes apples fall from trees. It keeps your feet planted on the ground. The gravity in a black hole is much stronger. It is so strong that nothing around it can get away from it, not even light.
Black holes are invisible. We can’t actually see them because they don’t throw back light. But scientists can find them with space telescopes and special tools. The strong gravity makes nearby stars move in a certain way. By studying how the stars move, scientists can find out if they are flying around a black hole. Strange things happen around black holes. This makes black holes a popular subject of science fiction（科幻）stories, although they are very unreal.
A black hole forms（形成）when a star dies. The star falls in on itself and turns into a very small point. Because of its small size and huge mass（质量）, the gravity will be so strong that it will pull light in and become a black hole. Black holes can grow huge as they continue to pull other things in and “eat” them. Many scientists believe that there are super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies, including the Milky Way.
The idea of the black hole was first suggested by two different scientists in the 18th century: John Michelle and Pierre-Simon Laplace. In 1967, a physicist named John Archibald Wheeler came up with the name “black hole”. Studying black holes can tell us many things about our galaxy and help scientists answer questions about the universe.
1. The word “invisible” in Paragraph 2 probably means “________”.| A．far to go | B．easy to find |
| C．difficult to catch | D．impossible to see |
| A．how big black holes are | B．how heavy black holes are |
| C．how black holes are formed | D．how black holes “eat” stars |
| A．a star’s moving path can help scientists find a black hole |
| B．writers love writing about black holes because they are real |
| C．many scientists believe that there aren’t any black holes at the center of the Milky Way |
| D．John Archibald Wheeler found the first black hole in space |
【推荐1】How could we tell time if there were no watches or clocks anywhere in the world? The sun was probably the world’s first “clock”, except in the far north, where the Eskimos (爱斯基摩人) live. There, it’s dark most of the winter, and light most of the summer. But in most of the world, people have used the sun for a clock. Even today, if you don’t have a clock, you still know that when the sun shines, it’s day, and when it’s dark, it’s night. The sun can also tell you if it’s morning, noon, or afternoon.
People who live near the sea can tell time from the tides. In the daytime, for about six hours, the water rises higher and higher on the beach. And then it goes down and down for about six hours. The same thing happens again at night. There are two high tides and two low tides every 24 hours.
Fishermen on a ship learn how to tell time by looking at the moon and the stars. The whole sky is their clock.
In some places in the world the wind comes up at about the same time every day or changes direction or stops blowing. In these places the wind can be the clock.
A sand clock is an even better clock. If you had fine dry sand in a glass shaped like the one in the picture, you would have what is called an hourglass. The sand in the hourglass goes from the top part to the bottom part in exactly one hour. When the hourglass is turned over, the sand will take another hour to go back again.
1. According to the passage, there are ________ ways to tell time besides the clock and watch.| A．3 | B．4 | C．5 | D．7 |
| A．they know very little about the sun |
| B．the sun there never goes down in winter |
| C．it’s too cold for them to go out to watch the sun |
| D．it has long dark winters and long light summers |
| A．News. | B．Science. | C．Business. | D．Advertisement. |
【推荐2】Plants and animals are largely made of water. So are humans. They need to keep enough water inside them, or they could die.
We get some of the water we need by eating food that has water in it. Drinks, such as milk and tea, are mostly water, too. A person needs water every day. If we go without water for three or four days, we will lose too much water from our bodies. In very hot weather, we could lose this water in just one day.
What does water do to help our bodies? Water helps to take the nutrition（营养）from food to our bodies. It also helps to take the wastes away from different parts of our bodies.
In our homes, we also need water for many things. We need water for cooking, washing and flushing（冲水）the toilet. About three quarters of the water is used in the bathroom and toilet. The rest is mainly used in the laundry（洗衣房）and kitchen.
___________It may come from a lake or a river. It may come from the sea, from the rain and snow or from the underground. Water rises from rivers and seas to make clouds, and then falls again as rain and snow. The water you drink has been around for millions of years. It just keeps being recycled.
Many people work hard to make sure we always have clean water in our homes. Water is very important for all living things, so we should use it carefully.
1. Living things could ___________ without enough water inside them.| A．grow | B．die | C．live | D．develop |
| A．taking wastes away | B．losing water quickly |
| C．changing water slowly | D．eating and drinking |
| A．nutrition | B．food | C．wastes | D．drinks |
| A．kitchen | B．living room | C．toilet | D．bedroom |
| A．How do we save water? | B．What do we use water for? |
| C．Where does water come from? | D．Where do we wash our clothes? |
Scientists understand why summer leaves are green and why they change to yellow or orange in the autumn. But autumn reds are different. Some leaves turn red. Others don’t. It’s amystery. Scientists want to find the answers.
All summer long, a green chemical called chlorophyll catches energy from sunlight for photosynthesis, a process that makes food for the plant. Yellow and orange chemicals called carotenoids are there through the summer, hidden by the chlorophyll. In the autumn, photosynthesis stops, and chlorophyll breaks down.Then carotenoids show through in the leaves. This explains the autumn colours of yellow and orange, but not the reds of trees. The source of the reds is anthocyanin which the leaf doesn’t start making until autumn.
But why do trees use a lot of energy to make anthocyanins in the leaves as the trees are preparing to drop them for the winter?Perhaps anthocyanins help a leaf save nutrients it stored up in the growing season. Dr.Eppes and her students ran a study to test that idea. In a protected area in North Carolina, they counted the types of trees that live in rich soil low on the hillsides, and the types that live in poor hilltop soils. Low on the hillsides, they found more birches and other trees that can’t make anthocyanins. These trees have yellow or brown autumn leaves. On the hilltops, most of the trees were red maples and others that can make anthocyanins, giving them red leaves in the autumn.
“Trees that don’t make anthocvanins seem to naturally live at places where nutrients get added to the soil every time the river floods, ” Dr.Eppes says. “Trees that make anthocyanins seem to live in places without this special ‘meal’.” She guesses the anthocyanins may lie in the soil after he leaves drop, fertilizing the tree in the spring,
Other scientists find that for trees that make anthocyanins, the leaves that get more sun tend to turn redder than those in shade. They think the anthocyanins work like sunscreen, protecting the leaf when it moves nutrients into the tree and stores them for the winter.
Scientists are not sure about why nature paints some autumn leaves red yet, but they are a few steps closer!
1. The underlined word “mystery” in Paragraph 1 means “something ________”.| A．useless | B．unknown | C．incorrect | D．impossible |
| A．gets plenty of energy from sunlight |
| B．makes leaves turn red in the autumn |
| C．helps change solar energy into food for trees |
| D．is hidden by the chlorophyll all summer long |
| A．may get nutrients from their fallen red leaves |
| B．are more likely to be found low on the hillsides |
| C．mainly live in the soil with nutrients from river water |
| D．can protect their autumn leaves against strong sunlight |
| A．Dr. Eppes did the research on autumn trees on her own. |
| B．Scientists have known the secret of red autumn leaves. |
| C．Scientists have different ideas on the function of anthocyanins. |
| D．Dr. Eppes finds trees that make anthocyanins have different reds. |
【推荐1】The Silk Road is the name of different roads that long ago connected Europe, Africa and Asia People reached these different places along these roads. Scientists believe people began to travel the Silk Road about 3000 years ago. When the Chinese silk trade became important in the world, the Silk Road covered almost 6500 kilometers. It spread from Rome to China, that is to say from the West to the Far East.
Traders traveling along the Silk Road carried silk, of course. They also carried and traded spices, cloth, valuable stones and gold.
There is a famous old story along the old road. It is said that Roman soldiers who lost a war traveled through central Asia. They decided to live somewhere near the ancient Chinese village of Liqian. Some of these Romans married local Chinese women and the story of blue-eyed villages of China was thus started.
During its busiest period, the Silk Road allowed people from many different cultures and countries to meet each other and mix. The Silk Road allowed sharing valuable goods and new ideas. These included people and trading goods from the Mediterranean, Persian, Magyar, Armenian, Bactrian, Indian and Chinese areas. All these peoples traveled along the Silk Road, and they shared goods, stories, languages, and cultures.
In modern times, the old Silk Road routes are still used, but now they are crossed by trains instead of camels and horses. There is even a Silk Route Museum in Jiuquan in China. It has over 35,000 objects from all along the Silk Road. In this way, China protects the history of many countries and peoples.
1. How many kilometers did the Silk Road cover?| A．About 3000. | B．Nearly 6500. | C．Almost 2000. | D．Over 35,000. |
| A．Asian soldiers. | B．African soldiers. |
| C．European soldiers. | D．American soldier. |
| A．The Silk Road connected Europe, America and Asia. |
| B．Traders traveling along the Silk Road carried silk, cloth, gold and tea. |
| C．The Silk Road allowed people from different countries and cultures to mix. |
| D．The Silk Road routes are still crossed by camels and horses. |
| A．Valuable things could not be sold along the Silk Road. |
| B．People from different countries at that time could build new villages freely in China. |
| C．Ancient Chinese along the Silk Road might be able to speak different languages. |
| D．The objects in the museum in Jiuquan in China are from all over the world. |
| A．History and Geograph. | B．Sports World. |
| C．Man and animals. | D．Popular Science. |
【推荐2】Minor Snow, xiaoxue, is the 20th solar term (节气) of the year. Here are the things you should know about this term.
Wearing hats and scarves In China, starting in Minor Snow, the wind blows from the northwest a lot. The weather will gradually become colder. It’s a wise choice to keep warm by wearing hats and scarves. | Drinking soup During Minor Snow, indoor heating in some places begins/to work. The air indoors is dry and most people might find their nose and mouth a bit dry. The solution is to drink more hot soup. |
Eating sticky rice cakes In some areas of South China, people have sticky (粘性的) rice cakes around Minor Snow. In ancient times, sticky rice cakes were a traditional festival offering to the god. | Making preserved pork (腊肉) After Minor Snow, the temperature is quite low and the air is dry. It is the best time to make preserved pork. In the past, storage (存储) conditions were poor, and people created many ways to store food. Preserved pork is one such example. |
1. What kind of food was offered to the god in the past Minor Snow?
| A．Delicious soup. | B．Fresh vegetables. | C．Preserved pork. | D．Sticky rice cakes. |
| A．It is the 21st solar term of the year. |
| B．It is the coldest time of the year. |
| C．Hot soup is a good choice in Minor Snow. |
| D．The best time to make preserved pork is before Minor Snow. |
| A．Health. | B．Culture. | C．Science. | D．Language. |
【推荐3】With the development of science, more and more students don't like taking notes by hand. They use digital cameras to take notes in class. They think it is easier to take pictures of what their teachers write on the blackboard or record what their teachers say in class. The children might think there are too many notes to take. They are trying to find ways to make things easier, so they use digital cameras. In fact, children are very clever to make use of technology.
But do digital cameras really make taking notes easier?
Not really. You have a lot of things to do before you read notes from digital cameras. To begin with, you have to find a computer. Then you need to copy the pictures into the computer. Next, you have to find a printer to print the pictures. Another thing is that you can't hear the sound from digital cameras clearly because there is usually a lot of noise. You will have to listen to it slowly many times before you understand everything.
In fact, taking notes by hand is really the most effective way. It can help you remember and understand what you are learning. In order to save time, you can choose the most important things or the things you don't understand to write down. You don't have to write down everything.
1. Why do more and more students take notes with digital cameras but not by hand?| A．Because they want to take the right notes. | B．Because their teachers want them to do so. |
| C．Because they want to make taking notes easier. | D．Because they always want to try new things. |
a. print the pictures b. find a computer
c. copy the pictures into the computer d. take pictures
| A．b-c-d-a | B．b-c-a-d | C．d-a-b-c | D．d-b-c-a |
| A．The sound from the digital cameras. | B．The noise. |
| C．The digital camera. | D．The note. |
| A．By taking pictures of what teachers write on the blackboard in class. |
| B．By recording what teachers say in class. |
| C．By using a computer. |
| D．By taking notes with your hand. |
| A．You shouldn't be afraid to write down everything. |
| B．To save time, you should not take notes but memorize what the teachers say. |
| C．You should write down all the words that your teachers write on the blackboard. |
| D．You only need to write down what you don't understand or some key words. |
