Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid (小行星) that crashed on Earth led to the
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Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid (小行星) that crashed on Earth led to the disappearance of the largest animals that have ever walked our planet – the dinosaurs. At least, this is what some scientists believe. But that accident happened so long ago. People have come to believe that we are free of threats from asteroids and everything else from space.
However, what happened on Feb 15 , 2013 was a reminder that we’re just as vulnerable as the dinosaurs once were. Two objects from space – a meteor (陨石) and an asteroid called 2012 DA14 – visited Earth’s atmosphere on the same day. The former fell in Russia, injuring 1,200 people, while the latter passed by Earth at a record-setting close distance.
Scientists had been expecting the asteroid since last year, but the meteor was a surprise. NASA’s telescope system only detects asteroids at least 50 meters in diameter (直径), which is just about the size of 2012 DA14. But the meteor was much smaller, which made it harder to spot.
But what if we do spot an asteroid that is headed right for Earth? There are several possible ways in which dangerous asteroids could be made to change its orbit. Which method is best depends on several factors and most importantly – how much time we have to stop it.
If there is enough time before the hit, we can send off a heavy spacecraft to travel alongside the asteroid. The gravity from the spacecraft would gradually change the rock’s orbit. Besides that, scientists could one day use sun-powered lasers to either make asteroids disappear or change their course. If there’s not enough time, we’ll have to go after the asteroid with a spacecraft and change its orbit with a crash. Finally, if things are truly desperate, there will be only one choice left – to use a nuclear bomb. That could turn the asteroid into a meteor shower, which would be even more dangerous.
小题1:The author mentioned the asteroid that led to the dinosaurs’ dying out to ______.| A．show that asteroids fall from space frequently | | B．alert people about the possible danger of objects falling from space | | C．inform readers about the constant threats the Earth faces | | D．suggest that there are still many mysteries about the universe |
小题2:The underlined word “vulnerable” in the second paragraph probably means ______.| A．unprotected | B．lonely | C．stupid | D．self-important |
小题3:Which of the following statements is TRUE about the meteor that fell to the Earth in Russia?| A．It passed by the Earth at a close distance. | | B．It was spotted by NASA’s telescope system a year ago. | | C．It is about the same size as the asteroid that passed by the Earth. | | D．It fell to the Earth and caused great damage to the local community. |
小题4:What is the main idea of the article?| A．Learning about asteroids and meteors. | | B．The threats of objects from space and possible solutions. | | C．NASA’s latest technology to discover visitors to the Earth from space. | | D．How to measure the damage of collisions from asteroids and meteors. |
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答案
小题1:B
小题2:A
小题3:D
小题4:B |
解析
试题分析：本文是一篇科技说明文。文章介绍了小行星和陨石可能对人类造成的伤害，以及人类为消除危害可能采取的措施和方法。
小题1:考查推理判断。根据文章第一段中的Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid (小行星) that crashed on Earth led to the disappearance of the largest animals that have ever walked our planet – the dinosaurs.可知，作者引用小行星撞击地球导致恐龙灭绝这个事实，来警示人们小行星和陨石可能对地球造成严重危害的严重性。故选B。
小题2:考查推测词义。根据文章第二段中的we’re just as vulnerable as the dinosaurs once were.可知，我们就像从前的恐龙一样无助而灭绝。所以A正确。
小题3:考查细节理解。根据文章第二段中的The former fell in Russia, injuring 1,200 people可知，前一颗陨石落在了俄罗斯，造成1200受伤。因此和D项内容吻合。
小题4:考查主旨大意。纵观全文可知：第一段通过恐龙灭绝的事实，引起人们对小行星和陨石对人类造成的危害重视；第二段谈下落在俄罗斯的陨石造成的危害；第三、四、五段谈目前人类的观测技术及我们应对陨石危害的方法和措施。所以B项正确。 |
举一反三
Market analysts in the United States have recently been quoted as saying that the biggest threat to the luxury (奢侈品) industry in the US is the tech industry. This is according to an article by fellow journalist Ashley Lutz. Her suggestion is sound. The main idea of her article is that products from Tiffany & Co. find their biggest competition not from other luxury brands but from companies like Apple. Lutz points out that luxury products are often only for “show,” while the attraction behind tech products is functionality.
You find few people in the United States today willing to purchase luxury goods at full price. It didn’t use to be that way. Luxury goods used to be actually exclusive. That meant you needed to travel to the right store to purchase them, and you didn’t even have the option of getting a deal.
Today, no one wants to pay full price for luxury goods. People have the unfortunate belief that fakes (赝品) somehow are equal to originals, and if you can’t get a deal on eBay, Amazon, or in an outlet store, purchasing a luxury product probably isn’t worth it. Luxury brands struggle to remain high-end (高档的) images despite the reality that the American consumer is motivated much more by discounts than they are by brand names or image.
Yet people stand in line to pay full price for a new product from Apple and crowds gather to hear about a new smart phone. While electronics are updating every day, people are purchasing technology at full prices much more than they are purchasing luxury goods. What are high-tech makers doing right that luxury makers are pitifully failing at?
Carefully looking at the situation, it would appear as if the Internet didn’t hurt the luxury industry, expectation from the consumers did. What people want these days more than anything is stuff that does something. They want cars that drive, shoes that are comfortable, games that are fun to play, screens that are beautiful to look at, tools that are useful, and entertainment that is entertaining. Little of that fits into what the luxury industry has typically offered with its status, image, and fine materials. The sad reality is that luxury products aren’t that luxury any more.
小题1:What does this passage mainly talk about?| A．Nobody likes luxury goods any more. | | B．Luxury goods are of poor quality nowadays. | | C．Tech products become the new “luxury goods”. | | D．Iphones have taken the place of luxury products. |
小题2:The underlined word “exclusive” in paragraph 2 means _______.| A．unique and with no bargain | B．low in price | | C．hard to find | D．easy to sell |
小题3:From paragraph 3 we can know that _______.| A．people have found that some luxury goods are fakes | | B．people can buy luxury goods at a low price on eBay | | C．luxury brands will give up high-end images | | D．consumers prefer brand names to discounts |
小题4:What do people pay most attention to nowadays?| A．The Internet service. | B．The images of luxuries. | | C．The function of products. | D．The expectation from the consumers. |
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Google, the Internet search and mapping company, has developed a car that can steer without a driver.
Sometimes the reality is stranger than science fiction: Google is road-testing cars that steer, stop and start without a human driver. The goal is to “help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions.” says Sebastian Thrun, who is the project leader for the driverless car, or Carbot.
By developing the car and the software that drives it, Google wants to change how people get from place to p1ace. Eric Schmidt, one of the company’s top officials, said, “Your car should drive itself. It just makes sense.”
So far, the driverless autos have gone about 140,000 miles on California roads without people taking over the driving. Many of the roads are very busy or full of curves that challenge human drivers. The autos’ software makes it possible to know speed limits, traffic patterns and road maps. The vehicles use radar, lasers and video cameras to find other cars and avoid people crossing streets.
There has only been one accident during the testing. And in that case, the Carbot was hit from behind by a human driver when Goog1e’s car was stopped at a red light. Engineers say the driverless cars are safer than autos with people behind the wheel because the computers react much more quickly than humans.
The Carbot is still in very early testing stages. Experts agree that it will be years before you will be able to buy one. But it is likely that one day you will be sitting in the driver’s seat of a driverless car. When the auto was first invented it was called a “horseless carriage”. Now it seems that it is time for the “driverless carriage” to be part of our 1ives.
小题1:What’s the main idea of the passage?| A．An auto revolution is on its way. | | B．Google has developed a driverless car. | | C．The Carbot has passed its early testing stages. | | D．Science fiction has turned into reality. |
小题2:The driverless car is safer than an auto with people because _______.| A．it uses radar, lasers and video cameras | | B．it knows speed limits, traffic patterns and road maps | | C．the computer has a better sense of direction than drivers | | D．the software responds to emergencies faster than a human driver |
小题3:The advantage of the Carbot is that _______.| A．it can drive all by itself | | B．it can avoid any traffic accident | | C．it doesn’t pollute the environment | | D．it is the most fashionable car nowadays |
小题4:70. The author’s attitude towards the Carbot is _______.| A．unfriendly | B．desperate | C．critical | D．optimistic |
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I heard many parents complaining that their teenage children are rebelling（叛逆）．I wish it were so．At your age you ought to be growing away from your parents．You should be learning to stand on your own feet．But take a good look at the present rebellion．It seems that teenagers are taking the same way of showing that they disagree with their parents．Instead of striking out boldly on their own, most of them are clutching(紧握）at one another"s hands for reassurance．
They claim they want to dress as they please．But they all wear the same clothes. Then set off in new directions in music．But somehow they all end up with listening to the same record together．Their reason for thinking or acting in thus-and-such a way is that many people are doing it．They have come out of their cocoon（茧） into a larger cocoon．
It has become harder and harder for a teenager to stand up against the popularity wave and go his or her own way．Industry has firmly carved out a teenage market．These days every teenager can learn from the advertisements what a teenager should have and be．
And many of today"s parents have come to award high marks for the popularity of their children．All this adds to a great barrier(障碍） for the teenager who wants to find his or her own path．
But the barrier is worth climbing over．The path is worth following, You may want to listen to classical music instead of going to a party．You may want to collect rocks when everyone else is collecting records．You may have some thoughts "that you don"t care to share with your classmates at once, well, go to it．Find yourself．Popularity will come-with the people who respect you for who you are．That is the only kind of popularity that really counts．
小题1:In this passage, the author wants to tell .| A．teenagers how to learn to decide things for themselves | | B．readers how to be popular with people around | | C．parents how to control and guide their children | | D．people how to understand and respect each other |
小题2:According to the author, many teenagers think they are brave enough to act on their own, but in fact, most of them ．| A．have much difficulty understanding each other | | B．lack confidence | | C．dare not cope with （处理） problems single-handed | | D．are much afraid of getting lost |
小题3:Which of the following is true according to the passage?| A．There is no popularity that really counts． | | B．What many parents are doing is helping their children find their own paths． | | C．It is bad for a teenager to disagree with his or her classmates． | | D．Most teenagers claim that they want to do what they like to, but they are actually doing the same． |
小题4:What does the author think of advertisements?| A．Convincing． | B．Influential. | | C．Instructive． | D．Authoritative（权威的）． |
小题5:During the teenage years, one should learn to .| A．differ from others in as many ways as possible | | B．get into the right reason and become popular | | C．find one"s real self | | D．rebel against parents and the popularity wave |
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When people first walked across the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years ago, dogs were by their sides, according to a study published in the journal Science.
Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jennifer Leonard of the Smithsonian Institute, used DNA material—some of it unearthed by miners in Alaska—to conclude that today’s domestic dog originated in Asia and accompanied the first humans to the New World about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Wayne suggests that man’s best friend may have enabled the tough journey from Asia into North America. “Dogs may have been the reason people made it across the land bridge,” said Wayne. “They can pull things, carry things, defend you from fierce animals, and they’re useful to eat.”
Researchers have agreed that today’s dog is the result of the domestication(驯化) of wolves thousands of years ago. Before this recent study, a common thought about the precise origin of North America’s domestic dog was that Natives domesticated local wolves, the descendents(后代) of which now live with people in Alaska, Canada, and the Lower 48.
Dog remains from a Fairbanks-area gold mine helped the scientists reach their conclusion. Leonard, an evolutionary biologist, collected DNA from 11 bones of ancient dogs that were locked in permafrost(永冻层) until Fairbanks miners uncovered them in the 1920s. The miners donated the preserved bones to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where they remained untouched for more than 70 years. After borrowing the bones from the museum, Leonard and her colleagues used radiocarbon techniques to find the age of the Alaska dogs. They found the dogs all lived between the years of 1450 and 1675 A.D., before Vitus Bering and Aleksey Chirikov who were the first known Europeans to view Alaska in 1741. The bones of dogs that wandered the Fairbanks area centuries ago should therefore be the remains of “pure native American dogs,” Leonard said. The DNA of the Fairbanks dogs would also expose whether they were the descendents of wolves from North America.
Along with the Fairbanks samples, the researchers collected DNA from bones of 37 dog specimens(标本) from Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia that existed before the arrival of Columbus. In the case of both the Alaska dogs and the dogs from Latin America, the researchers found that they shared the most genetic material with gray wolves of Europe and Asia. This supports the idea of domestic dogs entering the New World with the first human explorers who wandered east over the land bridge.
Leonard and Wayne’s study suggests that dogs joined the first humans that made the adventure across the Bering Land Bridge to slowly populate the Americas. Wayne thinks the dogs that made the trip must have provided some excellent service to their human companions or they would not have been brought along. “Dogs must have been useful because they were expensive to keep,” Wayne said. “They didn’t feed on mice; they fed on meat, which was a very guarded resource.”
小题1: The underlined word “remains” is closed in meaning to ______.| A．leftover food | B．animal waste | | C．dead bodies | D．living environment |
小题2:According to the study described in Paragraph 4, we can learn that ______.| A．ancient dogs entered North America between 1450 and 1675 AD | | B．the 11 bones of ancient dogs are not from native American dogs | | C．the bones discovered by the gold miners were from North American wolves | | D．the bones studied were not from dogs brought into North America by Europeans |
小题3:What can we know from the passage?| A．Native Americans domesticated local wolves into dogs. | | B．Scientists discovered some ancient dog remains in 1920s. | | C．Latin America’s dogs are different from North America’s in genes. | | D．Ancient dogs entered North America across the Bering Land Bridge. |
小题4:The first humans into the New World brought dogs along with them because ______.| A．dogs fed on mice | B．dogs were easy to keep | | C．dogs helped protect their resources | D．dogs could provide excellent service |
小题5:What does the passage mainly talk about ______.| A．the origin of the North American dogs | | B．the DNA study of ancient dogs in America | | C．the reasons why early people entered America | | D．the difference between Asian and American dogs |
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Among the Boys is a unique after-school program for boys living in the Highland Park neighborhood of our city. The organizational task is to provide males living in low-income and public housing with opportunities to discover their ability to change challenges into possibilities. The program includes an academic part as well as specific plans for supporting the overall development of the participants. Among the Boys uses painting as an instrument for helping boys examine their world, discuss it, and develop positive ways of handling the challenges they face daily. Young men present personal challenges to the group, such as a recent fight or the long-term drug abuse they observe in their neighborhood. After guided discussion, the youth work as a team, determining how to best represent the issue at hand in a painting. The resulting paintings and explanations of these paintings provided by the young people suggest that something profound(深远的) occurs through this process. These young men are learning a healthy way to express and cope with the pain and suffering they feel. Art serves as a healing process and a structured method of teaching teamwork, nonviolent values, conflict handling and problem-solving skills.
Activities in Among the Boys are in agreement with the best practices in the prevention of high-risk behavior. First, community-based youth development programs are considered important parts of a comprehensive prevention method, particularly in high-risk neighborhoods. Second, compensatory(补偿) education that targets at risk youth for academic failure is also considered an effective prevention method. Third, interventions(介入) aimed at improving youth’s moral reasoning, social problem-solving, and thinking skills are reported to be effective methods for reducing violence in high-risk populations, especially when carried out with elementary school-aged boys. Finally, Among the Boys has an adapted tutoring part, considered an effective prevention tool. Tutoring is typically a one-to-one match between a tutor and a youth, but Among the Boys employs what is referred to as “group tutoring.” Among the Boys makes up for its high student-tutor ratio(比例) with quality and quantity of time, as the program meets after school, on Saturdays, and all day during the summer, and is staffed primarily by males, an unusual quality among educational programs.
Among the Boys is rare and successful form of grassroots program, and represents the dream of a successful male who grew up in the Highland Park neighborhood and has returned to make a valuable contribution to his community.
小题1:Which of the following most accurately describes the organization of the second paragraph？| A．A theory is presented and proved with data. | | B．A statement is made and supported with examples. | | C．A problem is put forward and solutions are suggested | | D．A situation is described and a prediction is provided |
小题2: Which of the following statements is implied in the passage?| A．Art programs can promote painting but cannot prevent school failure. | | B．Social problem-solving skills are not important for high school-age youth. | | C．Most educational programs have some female staff members. | | D．Teamwork produces better paintings than does independent work. |
小题3: In discussing Among the Boys’ tutoring part, the author implies that ______. | A．Among the Boys employs a traditional tutoring model | | B．tutoring is effective only with elementary school-age boys | | C．tutoring prevents the youth’s attention from wandering off | | D．increased hours with a group can be as effective as a one-to-one tutoring relationship |
小题4:The founder of the program described in the passage ______.| A．sought contributions to make his program successful | | B．designed the program for the same neighborhood in which he grew up | | C．is seeking reelection for the Highland Park community school board | | D．was a successful graduate of Among the Boys when he was a youth |
小题5: The attitude of the author of the passage toward Among the Boys is ______.| A．forgiving | B．doubtful | C．praising | D．ignorant |
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