1 . Igor Sikorsky was born on May 25th, 1889. Sikorsky developed an interest in natural sciences in his youth. He began studying at the Saint Petersburg Maritime Cadet Corps at the age of 14. In 1906, he decided that his future lay in engineering, so he left to study in Paris. In 1907, he returned home to complete his studies at the Mechanical College of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.
A year later on a trip to Germany with his father, he learned of the achievements of the Wright Brothers and Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s airships. Sikorsky later said about this: “Within twenty-four hours, I’d decided to pursue aviation.”
Sikorsky then started his work on designing a helicopter. The first two attempts failed in 1909 and 1910 so he stopped and turned to fixed-wing aircraft (飞行器). His first attempt, the S-l, also failed. But his second attempt, the S-2, was a success. He continued to develop his knowledge to improve his airplane models. During this time，he also got his pilot’s license(执照). His fifth plane, the S-5, won him national attention. His sixth plane, the S-6-A, won him the highest award at the 1912 Moscow Aviation Exhibition. He built the first four-engine plane in 1913.
To continue to seek his dream, Sikorsky went to the United States in 1919, where he began teaching mathematics. He worked day and night and saved enough money to establish his own aviation company in Long Island in 1923. The company did pretty well but Sikorsky was dreaming big.
All this time his dream of building a helicopter had just grown bigger and he never stopped writing down his designs and ideas. In 1939 his dream came true. Sikorsky finally completed the VS-300 and piloted its first flight himself. It was the first successful helicopter of the United States and by 1940 served as the model for all single-rotor (单旋翼)helicopters.
Sikorsky’s work contributed greatly to the aviation industry and he was recognized as the father of helicopters because of his pioneering designs. He officially retired in 1957, but he continued to work as a consultant (顾问)until his death in 1972 at the age of 83.
1. What did Igor Sikorsky do after a trip in 1908?| A．He made engineering his major. |
| B．He moved from France to Germany. |
| C．He decided to change his life’s work. |
| D．He returned home to continue his studies. |
| A．Igor Sikorsky’s continuous hard work. |
| B．The life lessons Igor Sikorsky learned. |
| C．The reasons for Igor Sikorsky’s past failures. |
| D．Igor Sikorsky’s attempts to design helicopters. |
| A．Igor Sikorsky’s helicopter was a success. |
| B．Igor Sikorsky received his pilot’s license. |
| C．Igor Sikorsky’s own company was set up. |
| D．Igor Sikorsky became a mathematics teacher. |
| A．face danger fearlessly | B．treasure what they are |
| C．seek help from others | D．stick to their dreams |
2 . Peter Tabichi is a science teacher who donates 80 percent of his teaching salary
“I’m very proud of my students. We lack
But attendance isn’t the only thing going up; so is the school’s reputation for
For many of these children, Tabichi’s efforts have been life-changing. They were sometimes
For Tabichi, the
Winning the award, which was
| A．to | B．for | C．in | D．on |
| A．selected | B．won | C．made | D．created |
| A．principals | B．inventors | C．educators | D．parents |
| A．experiences | B．classrooms | C．guides | D．facilities |
| A．offensive | B．effective | C．negative | D．positive |
| A．wealthy | B．remote | C．developed | D．damaged |
| A．neither | B．both | C．either | D．all |
| A．virtual | B．cosy | C．modern | D．difficult |
| A．restarting | B．designing | C．expanding | D．ignoring |
| A．scientific | B．literary | C．cultural | D．social |
| A．prevents | B．enables | C．invites | D．sends |
| A．staff | B．students | C．teachers | D．friends |
| A．serious | B．complex | C．impressive | D．believable |
| A．unlikely | B．certain | C．probable | D．sure |
| A．fault | B．adjustment | C．support | D．crime |
| A．studies | B．funds | C．rewards | D．requirements |
| A．sadness | B．regret | C．curiosity | D．satisfaction |
| A．admitted | B．presented | C．added | D．established |
| A．by | B．with | C．as | D．of |
| A．corner | B．side | C．aspect | D．field |
The
Through Snow’s
1. 感谢关注：
2. 你的分享；
3. 你的感想。
注意：
1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Jeff,
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
5 . Born on May 27,1907 in Springdale,Pennsylvania, Rachel Carson became an avid explorer as well as reader, and took an interest in writing stories.By age 10, she had published her first story in St. Nicholas. She would often read this magazine, as well as many others that concerned the natural world. In 1925, she finished at the top of her class in high school in a class of 45 students.
Carson would go on to attend the Pennsylvania College for Women,which is known as Chatham University now. This is where she would end up pursuing the sciences,in this case biology. She would eventually attend Johns Hopkins University in 1929, continuing her studies in zoology and genetics.
Carson completed her Master' s in zoology in June of 1932, and went to work at a local radio station. Here she would write educational broadcasts for a weekly radio show called Romance Under the Waters. This led her to her job at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and she became just the second woman to be employed by the bureau.
In 1951, Carson had her book The Sea Around Us published,which explains the complexity of the ocean to non-scientists. Carson wrote the book with poetry and science, and she intended to spark in her readers a sense of the fragility of the world' s ecosystem. The Sea Around Us made Carson the voice of public science in America, an internationally recognized authority on the oceans,and established her reputation as a nature writer of the first rank.
In 1962,Carson became well-known when her most famous book Silent Spring was published. This book described the negative effects of pesticides on the environment. Her concern with pesticides dated back to the 1940s,but no one would take her seriously until this book was finally published. On April 14th,1964,Carson passed away due to a heart attack but her work towards preserving the environment has continued to this day. Silent Spring was even republished in 1994 with an introduction from then vice-president Al Gore.
1. What do we know about Carson's early life?| A．She was a great fan of St. Nicholas. |
| B．She worked part-time at a radio station. |
| C．She pursued the sciences in high school. |
| D．She moved to Springdale at the age of 10. |
| A．is a science book for professionals |
| B．was published after Carson passed away |
| C．aimed to raise public environmental awareness |
| D．has made Carson a fiction writer of international significance |
| A．Critical. |
| B．Ambiguous. |
| C．Skeptical. |
| D．Approving. |
| A．Talented and responsible. |
| B．Independent but serious. |
| C．Reliable and courageous. |
| D．Determined but proud. |
1.居里夫人是世界著名的女科学家，1867年出生于波兰一个教师家庭，于1934年去世。
2.从小爱学习并希望成为科学家，16岁中学毕业，24岁进入巴黎大学，生活俭朴，学习刻苦。
3.一生致力于科学研究，于1903年和1911年两次分别荣获诺贝尔物理学奖和诺贝尔化学奖。
4.居里夫人作为一位伟大的女性将永远为人们所怀念。
注意：词数80左右。
参考词汇：诺贝尔奖the Nobel Prize
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7 . Barbara McClintock was one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. She made important discoveries about genes and chromosomes(染色体).
Barbara McClintock was born in 1902 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her family moved to the Brooklyn area of New York City in 1908. Barbara was an active child with interests in sports and music. She also developed an interest in science.
She studied science at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Barbara was among a small number of undergraduate students to receive training in genetics in 1921. Years later, she noted that few college students wanted to study genetics.
Barbara McClintock decided to study botany, the scientific study of plants, at Cornell University. She completed her undergraduate studies in 1923. McClintock decided to continue her education at Cornell. She completed the master’s degree in 1925. Two years later, she finished all her requirements for the doctorate degree.
McClintock stayed at Cornell after she completed her education. She taught students botany. The 1930s was not a good time to be a young scientist in the United States. The country was in the middle of the great economic depression. Millions of Americans were unemployed. Male scientists were offered jobs. But female geneticists were not much in demand.
An old friend from Cornell, Marcus Rhoades, invited McClintock to spend the summer of 1941 working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It is a research center on Long Island, near New York City. McClintock started a temporary job with the genetics department. A short time later, she accepted a perpetual position in the laboratory and got continual incomes. This gave her the freedom to continue her research without repeatedly asking for financial aid.
By the 1970s, her discoveries had had an effect on everything from genetic engineering to cancer research. McClintock won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1983 for her discovery of the ability of genes to change positions on chromosomes. She was the first American woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize.
1. When did McClintock get a doctorate degree?| A．In 1921. | B．In 1923. | C．In 1925. | D．In 1927 |
| A．male scientists were in great demand |
| B．male scientists were out of work |
| C．female geneticists were not in demand at all |
| D．young female scientists might have trouble finding a job |
| A．A permanent position in the laboratory. |
| B．A temporary job in the genetics department. |
| C．A job as a botany teacher. |
| D．A job to research cancer. |
| A．Because she received a degree in genes and chromosomes. |
| B．Because she contributed to genetic engineering and cancer research. |
| C．Because she made important discoveries about genes and chromosomes. |
| D．Because she was the first American woman who studied genes and chromosomes. |
8 . On July 14, 2017, Maryam Mirzakhani, Stanford professor of mathematics and the first female winner of the Fields Medal in Mathematics, died at the age of 40.
The news was especially hard-hitting for a generation of younger academics who have always held Maryam as a role model whose example is helping redefine women’s status in science and especially mathematics. What was fun was that Maryam always tried to avoid the media’s spotlight. Her modesty (谦虚) and simplicity despite being the first woman to gain such high status in the world of mathematics — winning what’s often called the “Nobel Prize of math” — stood out to those who knew her.
Maryam originally wanted to be a writer, a passion of hers that never faded away even during her postgraduate studies. However, she found an even greater joy in how rewarding it felt to solve mathematical problems. As a student, she was the first female member of Iran’s national team to participate in the International Math Olympiad (IMO), and she won two gold medals in two years — still a record.
She received her bachelor’s degree in Iran and later studied at Harvard. In 2014, Maryam was recognized with the Fields Medal, the highest-ranking award in mathematics. Her work focused on curved surfaces like spheres (球体). Her achievements have applications in other scientific fields including engineering and material science. Unfortunately, at that time she was already tackling the breast cancer.
Maryam’s legend (传奇) may continue to grow after her early death. Still only 20 percent of full-time math teachers at U. S. universities are women. The example of a woman who rose to the top of this still very male field may help inspire math’s next generation.
In the same way people think of Marie Curie or Jane Goodall as scientific pioneers, Maryam Mirzakhani will go down in history as a trailblazer as well as a mathematical genius.
1. What makes Maryam internationally recognized?| A．Her unfading passion for writing. |
| B．Fighting against sexual discrimination. |
| C．Being the first female Fields Medal winner. |
| D．Coming under the media’s spotlight frequently. |
| A．She was sociable in her life. |
| B．She was enthusiastic about spotlight. |
| C．She was devoted to redefining women’s right. |
| D．She was much indifferent to fame and fortune. |
| A．She won gold medals for Iran in IMO. |
| B．She got her bachelor’s degree at Harvard. |
| C．She applied mathematics to material science. |
| D．She instructed some female students to reach the top. |
| A．Talent. | B．Model. | C．Follower. | D．Pioneer. |
9 . Women have been making scientific discoveries since ancient times. Dozens of women have won the Nobel Prize in science, one of the highest honors in the world. Some women scientists never married, some worked with their husbands, and others raised large families. It has been difficult for women to be successful scientists.
In the early 1800s in England, Mary Anning became one of the first women recognized for her discoveries about the ancient history of the earth. Mary and her father collected fossils in their village on the south coast of Great Britain. Fossils are parts of plants or animals that have been saved in rocks for millions of years.
When she was only twelve years old, Mary became the first person to find the almost complete skeletons of several animals that no longer existed on earth. She didn’t become famous for her discoveries at that time because she often sold her fossils to get money to support her family.
In 1891, a young Polish woman named Marie Sklodowska traveled to Paris to study physics. She did so because she could not get a college education in Poland. She began working in the laboratory of a man named Pierre Curie. Marie and Pierre Curie got married and made many discoveries together. They received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 along with another scientist. Marie Curie became the first person to be awarded a second Nobel Prize in 1911, this time in Chemistry. Marie Curie was one of the few women at the time that became famous as a scientist.
1. What does the author think of women scientists according to Paragraph 1?| A．They go through difficulties to be successful. |
| B．They cannot get the highest honors in the world. |
| C．They had better pay more attention to their families. |
| D．They have more opportunities to become successful. |
| A．She didn’t want to be known to anyone. | B．They weren’t worth studying. |
| C．Nobody recognized them. | D．She sold them for money. |
| A．She finished her college education in Poland. |
| B．She was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. |
| C．She won the first Nobel Prize before getting married. |
| D．She and her husband won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. |
| A．Ancient discoveries of a woman scientist. | B．Some stories of a woman scientist. |
| C．Successful marriage of a woman scientist. | D．A woman scientist winning the Nobel Prize. |
10 . Chien-Shiung Wu spent most of her life in the United States, but the Chinese-American nuclear physicist is at least as well known, if not much more, among the Chinese than among Americans.
On March 17, 2016 the US Department of Energy website published an article praising Wu’s many achievements during National Women’s History Month this month. She was known as the “Chinese Madame Curie”, “First Lady of Physics”, and many other titles given by her students. Wu was born in Shanghai on May 31, 1912, and grew up in Jiangsu.
Wu was lucky at a time of few educational opportunities for women in China. She attended the elementary school for girls founded in 1913 by her father. After graduating from Suzhou No 2 Women’s Normal School in 1929, Wu was enrolled in the National Central University (now Nanjing University) to study mathematics and then physics. In August 1936, Wu pursued further study in the University of California Berkeley in the US. Receiving her PhD in 1940. Wu taught for two years at Smith College and Princeton University. She joined the secret Manhattan Project in 1944.
Wu is best known for her1956 experiment that disproved(推翻) the conservation of parity(守恒定律). The experiment was regarded vital in securing fellow Chinese-born scientists Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wu had won numerous honors, being the first woman with an honorary doctorate from Princeton University in 1958, and the first person selected in 1978 to receive the Wolf Prize.
Her name and stories became widely known in China after she made many trips in China in later years. She was honorary professor at many Chinese universities and one of the first foreign academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1994.
Wu died of stroke on Feb 16,1997 in New York. An asteroid(小行星)(2752 Wu Chien-Shiung) was named after her in 1990.
1. Paragraph 3 is mainly about Chien-Shiung Wu’s ________.| A．living conditions | B．family background |
| C．education experience | D．major development |
| A．she was given many titles by her students |
| B．she is a female Chinese-American physicist |
| C．she secured Yang and Li the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics |
| D．she was the first woman to receive the Wolf Prize |
| A．Wu is widely known among the Chinese. |
| B．Wu was devoted to Chinese science in later life. |
| C．Many Chinese universities awarded Wu honors. |
| D．Wu’s Chinese trips made her the honorary professor. |
| A．An introduction to a physicist. |
| B．Achievements made by a physicist. |
| C．Praise to a physicist. |
| D．An experiment making a physicist well-known. |
