NASA’s twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been exploring the Red Pla

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NASA’s twin Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been exploring the Red Planet since 2004. But a little more than a year ago, NASA lost contact with Spirit. The space agency has tried several ways to make contact with the rover, but Spirit has not sent back any signals.
Spirit landed on Mars on January 4, 2004. Three weeks later, Opportunity arrived. Soon after, the rovers went to the opposite side of Mars. Spirit’s original mission was only designed to last for three months, but Spirit has worked for more than five years doing additional missions. Both rovers have made important discoveries about ancient Mars. They have taken thousands of images and found evidence in the rocks of a water, warmer past in Mars’ history.
Spirit is solar-powered. It got stuck in a sand trap in April 2009, trapped deep into the soil and with its wheels turning around and around but not able to move forwards or backwards. Spirit had to agree that there is nothing that can be done to change the situation—it’s never going to move again. However, even if it is a not moving station, it can still study the planet’s atmosphere and deep interior.
NASA has been concentrating on trying to position its solar panels to get as much energy from the sun as

possible, or to get the rover leaning in a manner that will allow the most amount of sunlight falling on its solar panels, in order to keep it alive during the coming winter months. Engineers have planned to rock the vehicle back and forth to acquire a more favorable position. However, no matter how many efforts have been made, Spirit still could not get out of the soft soil and could not lean itself toward the sun as the Martian winter approached. Without enough

energy reaching its solar panels and with so little energy in its batteries, it went into hibernation, just like a polar bear, and has not communicated with Earth since March 22, 2010.
Whatever the future holds for Spirit, its mission has been an outstanding success. When it landed on the Red Planet in January 2004, no one was really sure how long it would continue working in the cold and dusty environment. As a matter of fact, three months was its original goal.
After so many fruitless efforts, NASA scientists are losing hope of ever reconnecting with Spirit, but they will give it one more try. Ground controllers are contacting Spirit over a range of frequencies and at different times during the day in case its internal clock stopped working and it lost track of time. They

also are commanding the rover to turn on its backup radio transmitter in case the main one is dead.
If this final effort to connect isn’t successful, NASA will shift the focus to its twin robot, Opportunity, which is in a different part of Mars. Opportunity is still on the move and continues to travel freely to this day. It has traveled 16.6 miles so far, and is currently rolling towards another crater it has yet to explore.
NASA has spent more than $900 million on the project but shows no sign of giving up on these determined and hard-working robots. The rovers are, though, experiencing gradual wear and tear, the expected damage to something caused by using it repeatedly over a period of time. Even before Spirit got trapped, one of its wheels had failed. And NASA says it’s just a matter of time before both robots break down completely.
小题1:According to the passage, what can we know about Spirit?

A．It had explored Mars several times.

B．Its original mission was

to work for five years.

C．It landed on Mars three weeks later than Opportunity.

D．

It discovered that Mars was once a warm and wetter place.

小题2:According to the passage, which of the following is NOT what NASA did?

A．Try to lean Spirit to make it get as much sunlight as possible.

B．Rock Spirit back and forth to make it acquire a more favorable position.

C．Make efforts to help Spirit get out of the soft soil where it is stuck.

D．Contact and order Spirit to turn on its backup radio transmitter.

小题3:The reason why Spirit failed to communicate with the Earth is that ________.

A．it didn’t have enough energy	B．it had finished its task
C．something was wrong with its wheels	D．it met an unidentified creature

小题4:By saying “NASA will shift the focus” in Paragraph 7, the author means that ______.

A．NASA will move the center of Spirit out of the sand

B．NASA will depend on Opportunity to do the exploration

C．NASA will do nothing but wait for some opportunity

D．NASA will make opportunity help Spirit

小题5:The last paragraph mainly informs us that _______.

A．NASA has planned to spend more money on Spirit

B．Spirit will be brought back to Earth

C．Spirit will stop operating totally in the future

D．Spirit will cause damage to Mars

小题6: What’s the text mainly about?

A．NASA makes the last effort to contact Spirit.

B．Spirit has made many important discoveries on Mars.

C．How Spirit got stuck and couldn’t move on Mars.

D．Why NASA tried many ways to contact Spirit.

答案

小题1:D
小题1:B
小题1:A
小题1:B
小题1:C
小题1:A

解析

略

举一反三

In our life, we have rarely expressed our gratitude to the one who’d lived those years with us.In fact, we don’t have to wait for anniversaries to thank the ones close to us—the ones so easily overlooked. If I have learned anything about giving thanks, it is this: give it now！While your feeling of appreciation is alive and sincere, act on it. Saying thanks is such an easy way to add to the world’s happiness.
Saying thanks not only brightens someone else’s world, but it also brightens yours. If you’re feeling left out, unloved or unappreciated, try reaching out to others. It may be just the medicine you need.
Of course, there are times when you can’t express gratitude immediately. In that case don’t let embarrassment sink you into silence—speak up the first time you have the chance.
Once a young minister, Mark Brian, was sent to a remote parish of Kwakiutl Indians in British Columbia. He had been told that the Indians did not have a word for thank you. But Brian soon found that these people had exceptional generosity. Instead of saying thanks, it is their custom to return every favor with a favor of their own, and every kindness with an equal or superior kindness. They do their thanks.
I wonder if we had no words in our vocabulary for thank you, would we do a better job of communicating our gratitude? Would we be more responsive, more sensitive and more caring?
Thankfulness sets in motion a chain of reaction that transforms people all around us—including ourselves, for no one ever misunderstands the melody of a grateful heart.
小题1:In the first paragraph the writer mainly encourages us .

A．to express our sincere thanks timely to those around us

B．never to overlook our close friends in daily life

C．to wait for a proper occasion to show our gratitude

D．to increase the world’s happiness by saying thanks

小题2:When we say something for what others do for us, it ______.

A．is good for both us and people who help us

B．benefits the people who do something for us

C．wastes our and our friends’ time at the same time

D．does harm to both us and people who help us

小题3:According to the writer, could be the best way to prevent ourselves from being left out.

A．seeing a doctor to find the right medicine we need

B．expressing our gratitude in an easy way

C．speaking up the moment we have the chance

D．showing others actively we are willing to help them

小题4:Mark Brain’s story is mentioned in the passage in order to show the fact that .

A．the Indians didn’t have any words for appreciation

B．the Indians were particularly generous to others

C．some people may express their gratitude through different approaches

D．Mark Brain set the Indians an example to show saying thanks is very important

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However important we may regard school life to be, there is always the fact that children spend more time at home than in the classroom. Therefore, the teacher should realize that parents have a great influence on their children. Parents can become strong allies (助手) of the school or they can get in the way of the school education.
Experts have realized the need to keep parents informed of the newer methods used in schools. Many headmasters have conducted workshops explaining such matters as the reading readiness, program writing and mathematics to parents.
Moreover, the classroom teacher, with the permission of the supervisors(管理者), can also play an important part in giving more knowledge to reporting pupils progress, teachers can help parents a lot in educating their children and parents can give much help to teachers.
Suppose that a father has been drilling Junior arithmetic lessons night after night. In a friendly talk between the teacher and the father, the teacher can help the parent to make Junior interested in it. He might be persuaded to let Junior join in discussing the family budget, buying the food, using a ruler or measuring cup at home, setting the clock, calculating the distance of a trip and engaging in scores of other activities that have a mathematical basis.
If the father follows the advice, it is reasonable to say that he will soon realize that his son is making satisfactory progress in mathematics, and at the same time, enjoying the work.
Too often, however, teachers’ talks with parents are devoted to small accounts of children’s misdemeanors(不良行为). They talk about the laziness and poor work habits of the children.
What is needed is a more creative way in which the teacher, as an adviser, plants ideas in parents’ minds to make sure that the child spends the many hours out of the classroom learning something useful.
In this way the school and the home join forces in educating children.
小题1:The main idea of the passage is that ____.

A．home training is more important than school training

B．parents should help their children to do their homework

C．there’re many ways in which the mathematics program can be carried out at home

D．teachers can and should help parents to use better ways to teach their children

小题2:From this passage we can know that the writer ____.

A．is satisfied with the relationship between school and home

B．feels that parent-teacher talks can be made much more constructive

C．believes that schools can’t teach pupils well

D．calls on parents to teach their children mathematics at home

小题3:What way that the writer doesn’t talk about can improve the present situation?

A．Classes for parents.	B．New type of report card.
C．Parent-teacher talk.	D．Dinner or party.

小题4:The writer implies that ____.

A．interesting activities can improve one’s achievement

B．too many children are lazy and have poor work habits

C．teachers should often make home visits to parents

D．headmasters do more than teachers in this area

小题5:We can infer from the passage that the writer does not favor ____.

A．father’s helping his son with his study

B．written reports to the parents from the teachers

C．talking about children’s shortcomings

D．having the parents help their children with their lessons

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To what degree can a computer achieve intelligence(智力)? The answer to this question may lie in a newly-developed US computer program called Smarter Child and the Internet.
If you ran into Smarter Child online, you would be surprised at this kid’s huge memory. It can recite many facts. For example, Smarter Child knows every baseball player in every team this season.
He knows every word in the dictionary and the weather in every major city areas across the US. However, if you ask Smarter Child other questions, you get stranger answers. A question about Smarter Child’s age returns, “One year, 11 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes, and 47 seconds!” Asking where he lives gets, “In a clean room in a high-tech building in California.”
Smarter Child uses the vast information on the World Wide Web as his memory bank. To answer questions about spelling, for instance, Smarter Child goes to American Heritage Dictionary online. For the weather, he visits www. intellicast. com.
Some scientists believe that by joining the many systems of the Internet, an artificial being with the combined knowledge of, say, Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon and Britney Spears could be born. However if Smarter Child wants to think and learn on his own like the boy-computer David in the movie A. I., Artificial Intelligence, he must overcome two problems.
The first is that computers find it difficult to read web pages because the files are labeled in different ways. That’s why programmers need to tell Smarter Child where to look for the weather. It would be a much more difficult task to let him find it himself.
Another problem is that while Smarter Child can process(处理) information more exactly and faster than any human, he lacks common sense—a basic grounding of knowledge that is obvious to any young child.
小题1:From the text we can infer that www. Intellicast. com is a website .

A．which is specially designed to help Smarter Child

B．where we people can find Smarter Child

C．where weather forecasts are made

D．which is about artificial intelligence

小题2: It is probably most difficult for Smarter Child to .

A．tell us how to spell a difficult word

B．tell us how the American government is run

C．provide us with a famous poem by Shakespeare

D．learn how to tell right behaviors from wrong ones.

小题3: Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
A. Smart Child has his own memory bank big enough for all kinds of information.
B. A. I. Artificial Intelligence is probably the name of a film about a boy-computer.
C. Smart Child can recognize different files and find information needed on his own.
D. We have similar product now which has the knowledge of Einstein, Nixon and Spears.
小题4:Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A．A New Web Child	B．Smarter Child
C．The Future of Internet	D．Intelligence Development

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Have you ever complained why life is so tiring? Does the sky sometimes seem dark to you? Are your studies sometimes not successful? Well, friends, cheer up and smile all the time. If you see the world with your warm heart, you’ll find that the whole world smiles to you.
While in school, sometimes you are tired of your lessons, but have you ever noticed the happy smile on your teacher’s face when you did a good job?
One day it is fine. Just before you go out, it suddenly starts to rain. Maybe you would feel very sad and start to complain about the weather. But friends, why don’t you sit down and listen to the free concerts that the nature offers you? And with the timely(及时地) rain, crops in the fields will grow better and better and farmers will have a good harvest.
Although everyone wants to succeed in what he tries to do, sometimes failure can’t be avoided. I think failure is not terrible, and the terrible thing is that we are afraid of it and give up hope. When we face failure, we must be confident(信心) in ourselves, draw a useful lesson from it and try our best to finish what we have decided to do. As a popular saying goes, “Failure is the mother of success”.
Attitude(态度) decides everything. With an optimistic(乐观) attitude life is easy and pleasant. Let’s smile to whatever we meet and the whole world will smile to us.
小题1: People sometimes complain _________.

A．the sky is always dark	B．their studies are successful
C．they see the world with their heart	D．life is tiring

小题2:When we face failure, we ___________.

A．must be confident in ourselves	B．shouldn’t be afraid of it
C．shouldn’t give up hope	D．All of the above

小题3:The best title for the passage is_______.

A．Smile and the World Smiles to You	B．Complaining about Life
C．Failure is the Mother of Success	D．It is Very Hard to Succeed

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Competition between international universities is heating up, as China grows as one of the largest exporters of students aiming to study abroad. “Lots of universities are becoming more and more aggressive to attract Chinese students. Every day I receive contacts from universities in the US expressing the desire to come to China to recruit students,” said Frank Joseph, a commercial officer from embassy of the United States.
One key reason why more Chinese students are able to study abroad is the economy: With China’s boom within the past decade, more families have the financial wherewithal (资金) to send their children to international universities. There will be a total of 200,000 family-funded Chinese students studying overseas in 2011, up 20 percent from last year, said Wu Zaofeng, deputy secretary general of China Education Association for International Exchange.
International institutions, Joseph said, are also facing increasingly tough financial situation with a shortage of domestic students and a drop in government subsidies (补贴). Students, especially in the US are paying high tuition fees and living expenses. Chinese students with money to spend, according to experts, can fill up the gap. Students on average spend 150,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan every year studying in US, according to statistics from the US Institute of International Education. During 2009-2010, there were approximately 81,000 Chinese students studying in the US, up 19.8 percent from 2008.
Representatives from approximately 60 universities from the United States are planning to arrive in Beijing this weekend to attract more Chinese students at this year’s fair. Besides the US, many other countries are also vying (竞争) to enroll Chinese students.
Post-study work visa put out by British government allows all international students completing a UK degree qualification to apply for a visa to stay on and look for work in UK for up to 2 years. Being the third most popular destination for international students next to the US and the UK, France has set up two types of scholarships and has handed out an increase of 26 percent in scholarship funds to Chinese students in recent years.
小题1:The reason for heating up competition between international universities is __________.

A．that China has become one of the largest exporters of the students aiming to study abroad

B．China’s boom, the students’ desire and foreign universities’ commercial motive

C．that the students in China are becoming richer and richer

D．that the students in foreign countries do not want to go to universities

小题2: Why are more Chinese students able to study abroad?

A．Because their families have enough money to send them to international universities.

B．Because they can’t go to the best universities at home.

C．Because they want to win the scholarship of foreign universities

D．Because the Chinese students enjoy following others and they want to be independent.

小题3:Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．In 2011 there will be 200,000 Chinese students studying in the US.

B．Chinese students are able to study abroad for their relatives overseas.

C．In 2011 there will be 200,000 state-funded Chinese students studying overseas.

D．There are fewer family-funded Chinese students studying abroad in 2010 than in 2011.

小题4: From the passage we can learn that __________.

A．the number of foreign students is becoming smaller and smaller

B．the international universities are short of money

C．there were approximately 81,000 foreign students studying in the US during 2009-2010

D．the Chinese students spend more money than the American students

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