1 . Andy heard from his friend that a comet (彗星) was coming. He knew that a comet is a space rock. He wanted to watch it at     1     before sleeping.

When the evening came, it was a bit cold. So Andy     2     on a coat. He looked up in the sky. He could see the moon and some stars, but     3     new or special.

“Where is the comet? I only see the moon and some stars, ” he asked his friend on the phone. His friend told him where to look,     4     he still didn’t see it.

Andy went to wake his father up who was just     5     in the bedroom. Then Andy looked up in the sky     6     his father. Several minutes     7    , they saw a fuzzy (模糊的) thing, which is bigger than a star. That was it.

“I think it would be like the moon or something, ” Andy said. “It's not big enough for that, and it might still be very     8     away from us,” his father said.

“I still wish I can see it better. ”

His father nodded and went inside. When he came back, he had a telescope(望远镜) in his hands. Through     9    , they saw the comet a little better. It wasn’t much, but it helped.

After that night, Andy became interested in space and he thought being a(n)     10     must be cool! He wanted to go to the moon and even Mars on the spaceship one day.

2 . China landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time on May 15, 2021. This makes China the first country to make a successful landing on Mars on its first mission to Mars. China’s Zhurong rover（探测车）, named after a traditional Chinese fire god, has landed on the Martian surface.

The rover is part of the Tianwen-1 mission, which consists of an orbiter（轨道飞行器）, a probe（探测器）, and a lander. The mission was launched in summer last year, and took seven months to complete its journey to the red planet. It arrived at Mars in February this year, and since then the spacecraft has been performing operations such as capturing images of Mars.

Believe it or not, traveling to Mars is actually the easy part of such a mission. The truly hard part is landing on the planet’s surface, as landers must deal with factors like the planet’s thin atmosphere, its variable（多变的）dust storms, and a communication delay（延迟）between Mars and Earth. This delay makes it impossible for people in Mission Control on Earth to control a craft in real time as it gets close to the planet, so the landing must be performed autonomously（自主地）.

To slow its speed as the lander got close to the surface, it used both a parachute（降落伞）and a retrorocket（减速火箭）in its own “seven minutes of terror（恐惧）” as it moved through the atmosphere. It then landed in the Utopia Planitia area, part of which was exploded by NASA’s Viking 2 lander in the 1970s.

The rover will now begin its three-month mission to explore the Utopia Planitia area, where it will be searching for surface and subsurface ice. The mission will include both the rover and the orbiter working together to create a map of water ice, with the orbiter focusing on the planet’s polar areas.

1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The Tianwen-1 mission includes four space missions.

B．Zhurong was known as a great astronomer in ancient China.

C．The spacecraft has carried out a series of experiments in advance.

D．China achieved success in landing on Mars creating a new record.

2. What should be carefully considered on landing on Mars?
a. Mars’s atmosphere.
b. Mars’s bad weather.
c. The landing instructions.
d. The communication delay.

A．abc

B．bcd

C．abd

D．abcd

3. What do we know from Paragraph 4?

A．The landing way is quite different.

B．The landing process is full of danger.

C．The landing site is unknown to NASA.

D．The landing time is calculated precisely（精确地）.

4. Which of the following missions will not be launched?

A．The analysis of ice samples.

B．The mapping of water ice on Mars’s polar areas.

C．The exploration of the Utopia Planitia area.

D．The search of surface and subsurface ice.

5 . Mars(火星) is the fourth planet from Sun. It is home to both the highest mountain and the deepest, longest valley(山谷) in the solar system(太阳系). Olympus Mons, the highest mountain on Mars, is about 27 kilometers high, about three times as tall as Qomolangma. And the deepest valley on Mars reaches as deep as 10 kilometers and runs east west for about 4, 000 kilometers, about one fifth of the distance around Mars and close to the width of Australia.

Mars is much colder than Earth because it’s farther away from Sun. The highest temperature can reach 20℃ while the lowest can be as low as -140℃. Just like Earth, Sun gives Mars seasons. However, the seasons that Mars experiences are more extreme than Earth’s. For example, when Mars is farthest from Sun, the southern part of Mars experiences a very long and cold winter, about six months on Earth.

Mars lies farther from Sun than Earth does, so the Red Planet has a longer year—687 days compared to 365 for our home world. However, the two planets have similar day lengths, 24 hours and 40 minutes for Mars and 24 hours for Earth.

Mars is far from an easy planet to reach but many countries like the USA, Russia, China and Japan are always trying to send people there. Robots have got the tickets to Mars and it’s believed that Man will get the tickets by the 2030s, although it still remains a big challenge now. And scientists say it will take at least six months for people to travel to Mars.

1. The height of the highest mountain in the solar system is ________.

A．10 kilometers

B．27 kilometers

C．800 kilometers

D．4, 000 kilometers

2. The underlined word “extreme” in the passage means _________.

A．dangerous

B．serious

C．unusual

D．changeable

3. Mars has a longer year than Earth because _________.

A．Mars lies closer to Sun	B．Mars is farther away from Sun
C．Mars lies closer to Earth	D．Mars is farther away from Earth

4. We can learn from the last paragraph that ________.

A．no robots have arrived on Mars	B．humans have got to Mars
C．it’s a long way to Mars from Earth	D．it’s an easy thing to reach Mars

5. This passage is mainly about ________.

A．facts about Mars

B．ways to Mars

C．opinions on Mars

D．mountains on Mars

7 . The sun comes out in the morning and sets at night, and then the moon rises. Right? Then how come we can see the moon during the day sometimes?

The moon and the sun don’t actually take turns in the sky. The earth goes around the sun, and the moon goes around the earth. All three are spinning (旋转) in space all the time.

The moon moves through the sky night and day. Much of the time, the sunlight is so bright that we can’t see the moon during the day.

The sun is a very hot fire ball, which gives off both heat and light. But the moon is made of rock, it has no fire, and it is not hot or bright at all. What we call moonlight is actually sunlight bouncing off the moon, the same way that sunlight bounces off the glass in the window. They look like they’re lighting up, but they’re really just passing the sunlight along.

How bright the moon is depends on where it is in the sky. If the moon is between the earth and the sun, it doesn’t bounce any sunlight to us at all, and it is very hard to see, even at night. This is called a new moon.

When the moon is behind the earth, it shines very brightly. We call this a full moon. Sometimes, when the moon is very bright, we can see it even during the daytime.

1. Much of the time, we can’t see the moon during the day because ______.

A．the sunlight is so bright	B．the moon goes around the earth
C．the sun gives off heat and light	D．the moon is self-turning in space

2. What does the word “bouncing” in Paragraph 4 mean in Chinese?

A．闪光

B．反射

C．移动

D．照耀

3. When people see a new moon, the moon is ________.

A．in front of the earth	B．behind the sun
C．between the earth and the sun	D．behind the earth

4. Wen can learn from the passage that ________.

A．the moon has its own light

B．there is no heat on the moon

C．the moonlight we see is the sunlight

D．the moon and the sun don’t appear at the same time

5. What’s the best title for the passage?

A．How Does the Moon Pass the Sunlight Along?

B．When Can We See a New Moon or a Full Moon?

C．Why Can We Sometimes See the Moon During the Day?

D．Why Don't the Moon and the Sun Take Turns in the Sky?

9 . There is a new sight in the sky these days —the newly-discovered Comet (彗星) NEOWISE is flying past the sun. This the first time since the 1990s when people have had a chance to see a comet with their bare eyes (裸眼).

A comet is basically a ball of dirty ice that moves around the sun. As a comet comes close to the sum, the sun melts some of the ice, which makes a tail behind the comet as it flies through space. Most comets move around the sun in a circle. Comets spend most of their time moving slowly, far away from the sun. As they pass the sun, they speed up.

The size and shape of a comets moving way can influence how long it takes to finish its one circle. Halley’s Comet is a famous comet coming around once every 75-76 years. But the last time Comet NEOWISE was here near the sun was about 6, 800 years ago. Because of the long time it takes to finish its one circle, NEO WISE was only just discovered some months ago. It was seen in March with a special space telescope run by NASA.

The name of the telescope system that first saw the comet is NEOWISE, so that’s how the comet got its name. NEOWISE is easy to see now because it is close to the sun. At its farthest, NEO WISE will be 630 times farther away from the sun than the earth is.

Even at its closest—which was on July 23 —the comet was still as far away from the earth as Mars was. But it was still bright enough to see, even without a telescope.

1. What does the second paragraph mainly tell us?

A．How the sun melts the things around it.	B．When you can see comets.
C．Some facts about comets.	D．Why comets have a tail behind them.

2. What can we infer from the third paragraph?

A．You can’t see Comet NEO WISE with your eyes easily.

B．Comet NEO WSE is more famous than Halley’s Comet.

C．It’s easy for Comet NEO WISE to move around the sun in a circle.

D．Comet NEOWISE is less common to see than Halley’s Comet.

3. Where does the name of the new comet come from?

A．The name of the telescope system.	B．The name of the person who first saw it.
C．The name of a special day.	D．The name of the country.

4. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．People didn’t see a comet until 2020.

B．Comet NEOWISE was farther from the earth than Mars was on July 23.

C．Comet NEOWISE is always closer to the sun than the earth is.

D．Comet NEOWISE’S moving way can decide how long it needs to finish one circle.

5. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．How to watch comets.	B．A newly-discovered comet.
C．Where to meet comets.	D．Why we can see comets