The idea of life in outer space has been talked about for a long time. Some scientists say that life development on Earth was far too unlikely for it to have happened anywhere else. Things had to be perfect for us to make it on this planet.
Other scientists say that space is too big. Stars and other planets are far too numerous for there to be no other life in the universe.
For many years, there have been reports of visitors from other planets. People all around the world have claimed to see alien spaceships or even aliens themselves.
There have been glimpses of these so-called UFOs (unidentified flying objects) flying through the air and they have even ben captured on video. Some Americans believe that the U.S. Army found an alien spaceship crashed in the desert and then lied to the press about it. Although these sightings may be true, scientists have not found significant evidence that aliens exist.
If you go out into the countryside on a clear night and look up, you can see thousands of stars. Those stars make up a tiny part of our universe. There are more stars, planets, and galaxies than we can count. Even the smartest scientists can’t even come close to defining how big space is. The number of possible stars and planets out there is bigger than our ability to count. If we are really on the only planet that can sustain life, then we are very special in a universe full of amazing things.
1. What have some people claimed about aliens?| A．Aliens often appear in dreams. | B．They have encountered aliens. |
| C．Aliens are extremely dangerous. | D．Aliens are always kidnapping people. |
| A．To give an example of people who do not believe in science. |
| B．To explain why scientists are not interested in studying aliens. |
| C．To raise the issue of whether or not we are alone in the universe. |
| D．To inform people that a spaceship crashed in the American desert. |
| A．It’s not possible yet. | B．It’s already been done. |
| C．Aliens can be found in the USA. | D．Scientists already know the truth. |
| A．Visitors from Faraway Planets | B．The Life and Times of an Alien Life |
| C．The Mysterious Crash Landing in America | D．The Possibility of Life on Other Worlds |
| A．Narration. | B．Exposition. | C．Argumentation. | D．Description |
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From the moon to Mars, scientists have been looking for water — the key to life — in the solar system for many years. Recently, they have turned to Jupiter(木星)!
Jupiter is a gas giant(巨星). It doesn’t have an Earth-like surface. We can see strips(条纹) around it. They are actually cold, windy clouds.
On April 14, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) JUICE spacecraft successfully lifted off from French Guiana in South America. JUICE, short for “Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer”, will collect data(数据) from Jupiter and its three moons, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
The three moons are believed to have big oceans of liquid water(液态水) under their icy shells(壳). According to ESA, he water on those moons could be six times as much as the amount in Earth’s oceans. The mission “will change our understanding of the solar system”, wrote Scientific American.
In 1998, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft found that Europa might be ejecting(喷射) water as far as 160 kilometers into space. That gave scientists the idea of studying the icy moons of Jupiter.
The oceans under these moons are likely to be tens of kilometers deep. But they are also trapped under tens of kilometers of ice, making it very difficult to study them. Although JUICE cannot land on the surface, it has lots of high-tech equipment to study the moon’s environment, including spectral imaging(光谱成像) tools and radar(雷达). They could give more data on things like the thickness of the oceans, their salt content(含量), and their distance from the icy shells above, reported Phys.org.
“The main goal is to understand whether there are habitable (可居住的) environments among those icy moons and around a giant planet like Jupiter,” JUICE team member Olivier Witasse said during a press conference (发布会) on April 6.
1. What do we know about JUICE?| A．It will become one of Jupiter’s moons. | B．It will collect data from Jupiter and its moons. |
| C．It got its name from how it looks. | D．It left for Jupiter from the US. |
| A．be six times as much as the amount in Earth’s oceans | B．be common to see on other planets |
| C．have been ejected from the planet into space | D．mainly come from the planet’s icy shells |
| A．lost | B．caught | C．kept | D．taken |
| A．It can land and collect samples on the ground. |
| B．It can get information about the oceans by radar. |
| C．It can get water samples from deep under the icy shell. |
| D．It can break the ice on Jupiter’s moons. |
| A．To test ways of keeping water on Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. |
| B．To find out if Jupiter has living things similar to human beings. |
| C．To figure out if it is possible for life to live on some moons. |
| D．To move water from Earth to moons like Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. |
【推荐2】Our nearest neighbour is the moon. In the sky, the moon and the sun seem to be of the same size because the moon is much nearer.
The moon makes the tides—the changes in the level of the sea. The moon and the sun together pull the sea. In some parts of the world, the difference between “high tide” (when the sea is very near to the land) and “low tide” (when the sea is far away from the land) is very big. This is very important for ships.
The moon is very different from the earth. Gravity on the moon is six times weaker than that on the earth. There isn’t any air. During the day, it is very, very hot but at night it is very, very cold. Nothing can live on the moon. If the moon goes between the earth and the sun, we have an eclipse of the sun (日食). The moon stops the light from the sun and we have night in the day. If the earth goes between the moon and the sun, we have an eclipse of the moon (月食). The moon goes into the shadow (影子) of the earth and it disappears for a few minutes.
1. When the sea is far away from the land, we call it ________.| A．high tide | B．shadow | C．low tide | D．gravity |
| A．five times | B．six times | C．seven times | D．eight times |
| A．the moon | B．the sun | C．the stars | D．the earth |
| A．The earth goes between the moon and the sun. | B．The moon goes into the shadow of the sun. |
| C．The moon goes into the shadow of its own. | D．The sun disappears for a few minutes. |
a. The moon and the sun are of the same size.
b. Gravity on the earth is 6 times stronger than that on the moon.
c. The changes in the level of the sea are called tides.
d. The moon itself pulls the sea and makes the tides.
e. When the sea is near to the land, a high tide may happen.
f. It is much hotter in the day but much colder at night on the moon.
| A．abcf | B．bcde | C．adef | D．bcef |
【推荐3】Shlander is a man from space. He thinks the people and things on the earth are very strange. He is now writing a letter to his friend at home. Here is part of his letter. Read it and answer the questions.
Now I am in a strange world. It is very nice. There are many new things here. There are many earth monsters here, too. The earth monsters look very funny. They have just one head, two arms and two legs. They have thin black strings on their heads. Some earth monsters have brown or yellow strings. The earth monsters have a hole in their face. Every day, they put nice things and balls from the trees into the hole. They put water into the hole, too. The earth monsters do not walk very fast. They move from place to place in tin boxes.
At night, the earth monsters like to look at a square window box. This box has very small earth monsters in it.
1. Shlander thinks the people and things on the earth are very ________.| A．strange | B．nice | C．different | D．beautiful |
| A．a monkey | B．an earth monster | C．a tin box | D．a strange world |
| A．heads, arms and legs | B．brown or yellow strings on its head |
| C．a hole on its face | D．a wing on its body |
| A．nice things | B．balls | C．fire | D．water |
| A．a car or a bus | B．a very small earth monster | C．a TV set | D．a radio |
【推荐1】During this age of technology, life moves fast and people only focus on what comes next, rather than living in the present. Often their daydreaming is centered on the "next" rather than the "now."
Technology is all about what's next-the next innovation (创新）,the next platform or the next device. This is most obvious with the iPhone. The iPhone X has just released, but businessmen and customers are already thinking about the next, newest iPhone. I am already counting the days until I can upgrade my iPhone.
Throughout my adolescence (青春期), almost every single one of my peers have been too wrapped up with the next "great" thing and put too much stress on themselves while losing sense of what is going on now or what they have achieved; it drives me totally crazy. Upon entering high school, I was excited to spend the next four years with my closest friends. Sadly, once I hit my sophomore year (高二), I began to worry about getting into a good college and what I needed to do for that to happen. By concentrating on what's next, I seem to be missing what's great about high school.
Most students in high school look at education as a means to an end; something that will set them up for the next step. Due to this, they pay close attention to the teacher in class, not to enrich their knowledge, but to score high on the test, making them stronger candidates (候选人) for college. What is even more annoying is that universities are now forcing high school students to have a clear idea of what they want to do in life. Most colleges have specialized schools, such as business, nursing and education; in most cases, it is very difficult to switch out of or into one of the specialized schools. Therefore, high schoolers do actually have to focus on what's next.
When I go to college, all I am thinking about is still what comes next; that is, how to land a great job out of college. Everyone around seems to be like me. Actually, I truly hope that people who are in this very similar situation can figure out a way to make the "now" as important, if not more important, than the "next" in life.
Taking all of this into consideration, the concept of what comes next is far too ingrained (根深蒂固的) into important things of life, such as technology and education. If people keep racing from one thing to the next, life will pass them by and in a hurry; no one will be able to look back on what they have experienced or achieved, because life will have become a blur (模糊).
1. The writer mentions the iPhone in Paragraph 2 to show that .| A．the newest iPhone is always the best |
| B．young customers like new technology |
| C．the iPhone X attracts the most attention |
| D．technology is all about what comes next |
| A．High schoolers are forced to have clear ideas about their future jobs. |
| B．Few students pay close attention to the teacher to score high on tests. |
| C．Thinking too much about the present gives students too much pressure. |
| D．Different activities make the students stronger candidates for the college. |
| A．students now care too much about unimportant things in life |
| B．future achievements depend on your plan in your high school |
| C．college education usually makes a great difference to most of the people |
| D．people should live in the "now" rather than only look ahead to the "next" |
| A．Future, in Our Eyes | B．Now, in a World of Next |
| C．Past, Now and Future | D．Technology, a Key to Future |
【推荐2】Lunch or Junk?
It’s lunch time at Hall Memorial School in Connecticut, and 10-year-old Haley is making her way through the food line. Many of her friends are pleased with the day’s lunch selections: pizza and French fries and hot dogs. But Haley feels discouraged. “I use four or five napkins just trying to get the grease off the pizza,” she says. “Where are the healthy choices?”
Health experts are asking the same question. They say foods high in fat, salt, and sugar should be banned from school lunch programs. This includes some items you might not suspect (怀疑), like fruit punch, which is loaded with sugar, and macaroni and cheese, which is sky-high in fat and salt. “Children are already having too much junk food,” says Jen Keller, a dietitian at the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine. “It’s important to offer them only healthy items in school.”
It’s not that health experts want to take foods kids like best from them. They just want to help kids avoid many of the health problems that come with eating large quantities of unhealthy food. Today, 15 percent of children ages 6 to 11 are obese, or seriously overweight. That’s up from just 6. 5 percent in the late 1970s. Poor diet and obesity can cause diseases like type-2 diabetes (糖尿病), which can lead to blindness and kidney problems. As of a few years ago, this disease didn’t happen so often to children that it was called “adult onset diabetes.” “Many foods that are offered in cafeterias (自助食堂) are linked to these problems,” Keller says.
Most schools do offer some healthful foods, but experts say that doesn’t solve the problem. “Given a choice, most kids are going to choose junk over something healthy,” says Pat Thorton, a psychologist who studies obesity in children.
Thorton and other experts agree that schools and parents need to educate kids about making good food choices, both in and out of school. For example, few kids understand that many popular candies, chips, and sodas come in containers (容器) that actually have two or even three servings. And kids need to become skeptical about food advertisements they see on TV and in magazines. “Just because Beyonce sells Pepsi doesn’t mean it’s a good product for your body,” Thorton says.
Of course some kids already seem to know all of this. “The junk food is tempting (引诱),” says 10-year-old Tim. “But my parents tell me that if I eat healthy now, I’ll have strong bones when I get older. “
1. The underlined words “be banned from” in Paragraph 2 probably means “________”.| A．not be allowed in | B．be changed into |
| C．be served in | D．not be |
2. According to the passage, who should be responsible for kids’ good food choices?
| A．Schools and experts. | B．Parents and cooks. |
| C．Doctors and parents. | D．Schools and parents. |
| A．To discuss students’ favorite meal. |
| B．To educate you about eating healthy. |
| C．To teach you about the life in school. |
| D．To introduce some diseases aused by unhealthy food. |
【推荐3】Students decide to take a job while being in university because of two reasons, on the one hand. they need money; on the other hand, they want to experience something new and they want so see what working means. It is a good chance to know about the society and realize the importance of working with others.
But is it good to take a job while you are a university student? If we were to think about the advantages, we could mention the ones I have just discussed. Having a job at an early age helps us gain experience, which will be very useful to our later life. We may become financially independent and don’t need to ask our parents for money each time we want to go downtown with our friends, or spend the holiday at the seaside or in the mountains
However, students who take a job might have problems in spending enough time on their study. If they work during the day, they may have to be absent from their classes, and if they work at night they will feel tired the next day. They may choose to stay at home, resting. What’s worse, some students may even get bored with study.
Well, this fact happens every now and then, but there are cases when well-prepared students take a part-time job but at the same time they make time for study, too. And they have good results. Their case is a good example to follow among the students who decide to work while being in university. Anyway, we need to keep in mind that study is the most important job for a student.
1. The author believes that some college students work ________.| A．for further education | B．for pleasure |
| C．to support their family | D．to get experience |
| A．make more friends | B．prepare them for their future careers |
| C．win free journey. | D．have complete independence from their family |
| A．lose their interest in their studies | B．be absent from their exams |
| C．be in conflict with their roommates | D．receive punishment from their teachers |
| A．had better take a part-time job during vacation | B．should not take a job |
| C．should keep a balance between work and study | D．should learn by doing |
| A．is much like a coin with two sides | B．is much like a cake with fruit in it |
| C．has more negative influences | D．has more positive influences |
