2 . China's Chang'd has been operating flawlessly since it landed on the far side of the Moon in January 2019. Its arrival was later followed by the appearance of Beresheet, a probe built by the Israeli non-profit organization Spacell. It reached the Moon in April but crashed during its landing. Spacell has since announced that it intends to take another _________. At the same time, the United States has promised to set up lunar laboratories in the near future, while Europe and Russia have also _________ plans to launch complex missions. Suddenly, everyone is going to the Moon.

After the _________ excitement over Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's historic mission in July 1969, public interest in the future of human space flight gradually _________.So what has suddenly made Earth's only permanent natural satellite so popular again?

One reason for this _________ towards exploiting the Moon is that humankind has simply reached a stage of technological evolution that has enabled this progression, which is _________ to the other great trends of exploration throughout history.

David Parker from the European Space Agency sees particular _________ with our conquest of Antarctica. The Earth's southernmost continent was opened up by technological advances - motorized vehicles, air transport, radio and other developments - that are _________ in the new sciences of machine learning, sensor (传感器) technology, and robotics. These_________ to transform lunar exploration in one crucially important way: by reducing the need for the continual presence of humans in hostile environments. And the success of China's Chang'e-4 provides an example of what can be achieved without human __________.

Mastering a harsh environment that is distant will require us to overcome all sorts of technological hurdles. Then we will be better __________ when we start looking at Mars, which is 400 million kilometers away — a million times farther from Earth than the ISS. For many space enthusiasts, the exploration and exploitation of the Moon is necessary if we are to send people to Mars. "That's the real goal for humanity," says Parker.

There is, however, another more poignant (辛酸的) reason for returning to the Moon. Six Apollo missions made it to the lunar surface, each crewed by two men. __________, only twelve humans have ever had first-hand knowledge of standing on another world, only four of whom are still alive. __________ their age, we could soon find ourselves in a time when there are no humans left with the first-hand memory of another world. I, like millions of other people, feel that it would be a __________ should this reality one day come to pass.

When the Apollo astronauts were flying to the Moon, it seemed like science fiction come true. It would be good if we could bring back that sense of __________, if nothing else.

1.

A．luck

B．risk

C．look

D．shot

2.

A．revealed

B．unlocked

C．exposed

D．demonstrated

3.

A．increasing

B．initial

C．ultimate

D．genuine

4.

A．died out

B．worn off

C．passed down

D．left behind

5.

A．shift

B．evolution

C．passion

D．preference

6.

A．favorable

B．available

C．comparable

D．accountable

7.

A．association

B．harmony

C．agreement

D．parallels

8.

A．imported

B．mirrored

C．transferred

D．applied

9.

A．promise

B．contribute

C．resolve

D．intend

10.

A．interference

B．destruction

C．involvement

D．emergence

11.

A．informed

B．enlightened

C．armed

D．converted

12.

A．Thus

B．Nevertheless

C．Otherwise

D．Furthermore

13.

A．Despite

B．Beyond

C．Regarding

D．Given

14.

A．tragedy

B．destiny

C．blow

D．revelation

15.

A．fulfillment

B．wonder

C．duty

D．identity

3 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main points of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Imagine living on the edge of a vast desert, which is moving quietly closer to your village every day and covering your fields. The desert is on the move. This is called desertification.

Desertification occurs in regions close to an already existing desert. It generally arises from two related causes. The first is over-use of water in the area. There is not enough water in any case, and if it is not carefully used, disaster can follow. As time goes on, water shortages make farming more and more difficult. In some places, locals can remember local lakes and marshes which were once the homes for all kinds of fish and birds. They have been completely buried by the sand now. Farmers leave the land, and fields are replaced by deserts.

The second cause is misuse or over-use of the land. This means that the wrong crops are planted and need more water than is available. Ploughing large fields and removing bushes and trees means that the wind will blow away the soil. Once the soil is lost, it is hard to replace, and if there is rain, it has nowhere to go, and brings no benefit.

It is not only the farmers and villagers who suffer. Every spring, the skies over some of eastern cities, thousands of kilometers away from the deserts, can be darkened by sandstorms. Dust from deserts can have a great effect on weather systems. While desertification is perhaps being partly caused by global warming, these sandstorms can make global warming worse by adding to what is known as the greenhouse effect.

What can be done to slow down or stop the process of desertification? A great deal of work is already under way. Obviously first steps are to find new water sources. Tree planting can help, by providing barriers between desert and rich field. Some types of grass also hold the soil together, and stop the wind taking it. Without these efforts, it will be harder and harder to stop the world’s deserts in their tracks, and more and more farmers will give up and head for cities. The lesson to be learnt lies beneath the sand.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Would a person born blind, who has learned to distinguish objects by touch, be able to recognize them purely by sight if he regained the ability to see? The question, known as Molyneux’s problem, is about whether the human mind has a built-in concept of shapes that is so innate(天生的) that such a blind person could immediately recognize an object with restored vision. The alternative is that the concepts of shapes are not innate but have to be learned by exploring an object through sight, touch and other senses.

After their attempt to test it in blind children failed, Lars Chittka of Queen Mary University of London and his colleagues have taken another attempt at finding an answer, this time using another species. To test whether bumblebees can form an internal representation of objects, they first trained the insects to distinguish globes from cubes using a sugar reward. The bees were trained in the light, where they could see but not touch the objects. Then they were tested in the dark, where they could touch but not see the globes or cubes. The researchers found that the bumblebees spent more time in contact with the shape they had been trained to associate with the sugar reward, even though they had to rely on touch rather than sight to distinguish the objects.

The researchers also did the reverse test with untrained bumblebees, first teaching them with rewards in the dark and then testing them in the light. Again, the bees were able to recognize the shape associated with the sugar reward, though they had to rely on sight rather than touch in the test. In short, bees have solved Molyneux's problem because the fact suggests that they can picture object features and access them through sight or touch.

However, some experts express their warnings. Jonathan Birch, a philosopher of science, cautions that the bees may have had prior experience associating visual and tactile(触觉的) information about straight edges and curved surfaces in the context of their nests, so it is not possible to eliminate the possibility that some of the cross-sensory concept is learned rather than innate.

6 . Throughout history, many lives have been lost at the hands of severe weather. Meteorologists (气象学家) and scientists alike are always investigating new ways to increase the warning time for storms, with the hope of reducing the ______ of lives. In the past few decades, local weather radar advancements have been made, which allow for better accuracy in ______ the paths of storms.

Meteorologists and scientists have been able to successfully track severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes by using an advanced tracking system called NEXRAD (Next-Generation Radar). NEXRAD is a tracking network ______ 158 Doppler weather radars. And during a storm this high-resolution computerized ______ takes readings on the amount of precipitation (降水) in the air, the movements in the clouds, and the wind speeds.

These ______ are bounced back to a local weather computer, and a colorful image appears on the screen, giving meteorologists a clear picture of what kind of weather is on the horizon. This final image is what you see when the meteorologist breaks in with severe weather reports and warnings. ______, on your television screen you will see a computer animated image of the approaching storm.

If the storm is severe enough, then the National Weather Service (NWS) will ______ severe weather reports of severe thunderstorm warnings for your area. ______, the storm captured on the radar will have produced strong readable winds, detectable lightning, and some hail (冰雹). Paying attention to the weather map is ______ when severe weather is around.

On the television screen you will see several colors on the precipitation map, ______ from blue (the lightest) to black (the heaviest). If the colors for your ______ area are yellow, take caution. If the colors range between orange and red, take cover immediately, as damaging winds and dangerous lightning have been reported.

When local weather radar in Atlanta, Georgia reported high winds, ______ wind patterns and large hail earlier this year, the National Weather Service issued a tornado ______. Meteorologists in the area used the collected data to predict what path the storm would take, ______ which areas needed to be warned.

Thanks to this technology, most residents received the severe weather reports early enough to seek ______ before the storm hit. Paying attention to your local weather source during severe weather plays a vital role in your safety.

1.

A．loss

B．increase

C．protection

D．value

2.

A．changing

B．controlling

C．predicting

D．guiding

3.

A．faced with

B．exposed to

C．involved in

D．made up of

4.

A．structure

B．system

C．mode

D．style

5.

A．figures

B．data

C．readings

D．statistics

6.

A．Most likely

B．Most evidently

C．Most interestingly

D．Most importantly

7.

A．decide

B．estimate

C．handle

D．issue

8.

A．By the way

B．In that case

C．To some extent

D．On the contrary

9.

A．vital

B．reasonable

C．normal

D．available

10.

A．expanding

B．spreading

C．ranging

D．extending

11.

A．proper

B．specific

C．typical

D．regular

12.

A．straight

B．unique

C．general

D．circular

13.

A．process

B．threat

C．warning

D．sign

14.

A．indicating

B．recognizing

C．revealing

D．recommending

15.

A．rescue

B．residence

C．support

D．shelter

7 . It’s almost spring, the time of year when the change in seasons could lead to some pretty fascinating cloud activity in the sky. NASA and the GLOBE Program are inviting you to take part in a citizen science cloud observation challenge. The GLOBE Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process.

From March 15 through April 15, citizen scientists of all ages can make up to 10 cloud observations per day using the GLOBE Observer app or one of the other data entry options (for trained GLOBE members). Challenge participants with the most observations will be congratulated by a NASA scientist in a video posted on the GLOBE Program’s website and on social media.

“The GLOBE Program is offering this challenge to show people how important it is to NASA to have citizen scientist observations: observations from the ground up,” said Marile Colon Robles, lead for the GLOBE Clouds team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “We’re going from winter to spring, so the types of storms will change, which will also change the types of clouds.

Researchers use, and value, this citizen science cloud data because it helps to validate data from Earth-observing instruments. Scientists at Langley work with a set of six instruments known as the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System(CERES)

Even though CERES’ instruments use advanced technology, it is not always easy for researchers to positively identify all types of clouds in their images. For example, it can be difficult to differ thin, wispy cirrus clouds(细小的卷云)from snow since both are cold and bright; even more so when cirrus clouds are above a surface with patchy snow(片状雪)or snow cover. One solution to this problem is to look at satellite images from a particular area and compare them to data submitted by citizen scientists on the ground.

“Looking at what an observer recorded as clouds and looking at their surface observations really helps us better understand the images that were matched from the satellite,” said Colon Robles.

You don’t have to be a cloud-gazing professional to participate. For those who want to be part of the challenge but don’t have a lot of experience identifying clouds, Colon Robles offers the following advice: “Just go outside.” The more clouds you observe, she said, the more comfortable you’ll be collecting data.

1. Why do researchers launch the cloud observation challenge?

A．The GLOBE Program is badly short of hands.

B．The technology CERES uses is not that advanced

C．Scientists can compare data from different instruments.

D．Cirrus clouds are difficult to identify when with snow cover

2. The underlined word “validate” is closest in meaning to _________.

A．create	B．cancel
C．count	D．confirm

3. Which of the following is TRUE?

A．Citizen observers can only submit their data by means of an app

B．Observers submitting the most observations can get a special prize

C．Observations from the ground are not as valuable as satellite images

D．The data collected by citizen scientists will be posted on social media

4. Which is the best title for the passage?

A．NASA Employs New members

B．Cloud Activities Bring a New Challenge

C．Citizens Gain Experience through Observation

D．Professionals Teach You to Observe Clouds

9 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Fan Lihong, her parents and her daughter are standing along Madang Road in Shanghai, cups in hand. Many     1     in the line are doing the same. From afar, such a scene     2     seem reminiscent of water rationing. But these individuals are simply after a caffeine fix, with sustainability in mind.

“I have been using my own cups to buy coffee this year. Using my own cup is       3     convenient and cost effective－it also helps with environmental protection,” says Fan. Another customer     4     was waiting in a line outside Manner Coffee, Liu Shiyun, echoes the same sentiment. “A latte at Manner Coffee costs 15 yuan ($2.24). If I use my own cup to buy the coffee, I get 5 yuan discount and will save at least 100 yuan per month,” Liu says.

Manner Coffee, which operates over 100 stores across China, sells nearly 100,000 cups of coffee per day. Around half of their customers bring their own cups, according to Ning Yihan, marketing representative of Manner. We started to encourage consumers to bring their own non-disposable cups to Manner stores since the day we     5     (establish). We hope to contribute to environmental protection with our customers. It is very interesting and meaningful while you see all kinds of people bringing their own cups. There are Japanese-style izakaya store owners     6    (bring) beer mugs and security or sanitation workers with their thermoses,” she adds.

Other countries around the world have also set their eyes on reducing the use of disposable paper cups and encourage people     7     (use) more environmentally friendly options. For example, Ireland’s environment minister announced in November 2019 that consumers who use disposable cups will by 2021 be subjected     8     a “latte tax”. It was also reported that the United Kingdom uses 2.5 billion disposable paper cups a year, almost     9     of which are recycled. For this reason, British legislators have called for a tax on paper cups     10     they believe that manufacturers of these products should pay more.clothing.