1 .

Charles Darwin
Personal information: Date of birth: 12 February 1809 Date of death: 19 April 1882 Nationality: English Education: Edinburgh University, Cambridge University
Achievements: He put forward the theory of evolution by natural selection and published On the Origin of Species in 1859.
Influence: His theory of evolution by natural selection has greatly influenced the development of biology.
Interesting fact: Darwin was such a scientific man that before he made up his mind to get married, he made a careful list of the advantages and disadvantages of marriage.

1. Where was Charles Darwin from?

A．Germany.

B．Britain.

C．America.

D．France.

2. When was Charles Darwin born?

A．In Feb. 1809.

B．In April 1809.

C．In April 1882.

D．In Feb. 1882.

3. What did Charles Darwin come up with?

A．The Origin of Species.

B．The advantages of marriage.

C．The development of biology.

D．The theory of evolution by natural selection.

2 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Yuan Longping, known as the “father of hybrid rice”, was born in 1930.     1     (learn) that farmers often had poor harvests and sometimes even had a serious     2     (short) of food to eat, he chose to study agriculture and graduated from Southwest Agricultural College in 1953.

Since his graduation, Yuan     3     (devote) his life to finding ways to produce more rice. Through constant effort, he overcame enormous technical difficulties     4     (develop) the first hybrid rice     5     could be used for farming in 1974. This hybrid enabled farmers to expand their output     6     (great).

Today,     7     is estimated that about 60 percent of domestic rice consumption in China is comprised     8     crops come from Yuan’s hybrid strains. Yuan’s innovation has helped feed not just China, but many other     9     (country) that depend on rice as well.

Though Yuan’s hybrid have made him quite     10     (wealth), he doesn’t lead a life of leisure. Instead, he donates much money to support agricultural research.

3 . NATURE has many ways of reminding us who is in charge. Her most deadly weapons — bacteria, viruses, and parasites (寄生虫) —claim millions of lives every year.

But thanks to the hard work of great scientists, mankind could turn nature against itself. And it is for exactly this sort of work that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Oct 5.

Half of the prize was awarded to the Irish William Campbell and the Japanese Satoshi Ōmura for discovering avermectin (阿维菌素), a drug that kills the parasitic worms that cause river blindness and lymphatic filariasis (象皮病). Chinese scientist Tu Youyou shared the other half of the prize for developing Artemisinin, a drug that helps kill the parasite that causes malaria.

Ōmura is a microbiologist by training. He studied Streptomyces bacteria to find compounds (化合物) that work against harmful microbes (微生物). Campbell, working in the US, took bacteria found by Ōmura and took out avermectin, which is effective against parasites in farm animals. An improved type of avermectin was later produced for humans, which greatly reduced the cases of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis.

Avermectin comes from bacteria, but artemisinin comes from plants. Its discovery was the result of Project 523, a Chinese government project to find a new malaria drug in the late 1960s.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by parasites, which attack red blood cells, causing fever, and sometimes, brain damage and death. Tu and her team made 380 herbal extracts from 2,000 recipes from traditional Chinese medical books. In 1971, after more than 190 failures, Tu’s team finally found an extract that was 100 percent effective against malaria parasites. It was called qinghaosu, later renamed artemisinin. In 2001, the World Health Organization named artemisinin the first choice in the treatment of malaria.

Millions of people are still troubled by infections caused by parasites. But the WHO said that by 2013, malaria deaths had fallen by 47 percent compared with 2000. Similarly, river blindness used to be one of the leading causes of preventable blindness. These days, doctors are talking about chances of wiping the disease off Earth. All of these achievements would not be possible at all without the drugs that Campbell, Ōmura and Tu helped to discover.

1. The drug Tu Youyou developed, artemisinin, has proven effective in treating ______.

A．river blindness

B．malaria

C．lymphatic filariasis

D．infections caused by Streptomyces bacteria

2. Avermectin, discovered by Campbell and Ōmura, comes from ______.

A．bacteria

B．plants

C．farm animals

D．ocean animals

3. Which of the following is TRUE about the discovery of artemisinin?

A．It took Tu and her team about 10 years to discover artemisinin.

B．Tu and her team achieved success after about 380 failures.

C．Artemisinin has saved millions of people’s lives since its discovery.

D．Artemisinin was discovered thanks to the efforts of scientists from at home and abroad.

4 . LONE TREE, colorado-patanjali Rao, a 15-year-old Colorado high school student and young scientist, who has used artificial intelligence （AI） and created apps to deal with social problems, has been named Time magazine's first-ever "Kid of the Year".

Time says Rao stood out for creating a world-wide community of young inventors and inspiring them to go after their goals. Rao insists that starting out small doesn't matter, as long as you have a passion （热爱）for it.

Rao's sense of invention started early. At age 12, she developed a portable device to discover lead in water. She has also created an app called Kindly that uses artificial intelligence to help prevent cyberbullying （网络欺凌）. It allows teens to type in a word or phrase to find out if the words they are using are bullying and lets them decide what they are sending.

She said that "Work is going to be in our generation's hands pretty soon. So if no one else is going to do it, I'm going to do it.”

Rao has partnered with schools, museums, and science, technology, engineering and math organizations, and other societies to work for thousands of other students.

In a world where science is increasingly questioned or challenged, Rao insists that devotion to science is an act of kindness and the best way that a younger generation can better the world. “We have science in everything we're involved in, and I think the biggest thing to put out there is that science is cool, innovating is cool, and anybody can be an innovator," Rao says.

"Anybody can do science.”

1. What do we know about Rao?

A．She has created apps to deal with mental problems.

B．She has set a good example for the younger generation.

C．She has been named Time magazine's "Youth of the Year”.

D．She thinks that only the younger generation can better the world.

2. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Time waits for no man.

B．Ups and downs make one strong.

C．Passion and devotion help to promote excellence.

D．Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

3. From which is the text probably taken?

A．A newspaper	B．A diary.
C．A travel brochure.	D．A history book.