二、阅读判断

Europa’swatery underworld

　　Europa, one of Jupiter’s 63 known moons,looks bright and icy on the surface. But appearances can be deceiving: Mileswithin its cracked, frigid shell, Europa probably hides giant pools of liquidwater. Where scientists find liquid water, they hope to find life as well.
　　Since we can’t go diving into Europa’sdepths just yet, scientists instead have to investigate the moon’s surface forclues to what lies beneath. In a new study, scientists investigated one groupof strange ice patterns on Europa and concluded that the formations mark thetop of an underground pool that holds as much water as the U.S. Great Lakes.
　　Pictures of Europa, which is slightlysmaller than Earth’s moon, clearly show a tangled, icy mishmash of lines andcracks known as “chaos terrains.” These chaotic places cover more than half ofEuropa. For more than 10 years, scientists have wondered what causes theformations. The new study suggests that they arise from the mixing of vastunderground stores of liquid water with icy material near the surface.
　　For scientists who suspect that Europaalso may be hiding life beneath its icy surface, the news about the new lake isexciting.
　　“It would be great if these lakesharbored life,” Britney Schmidt, a planetary scientist who worked on the study,told Science News. “But even if they didn’t, they say that Europa is doingsomething interesting and active right now.”
　　Schmidt, a scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, and her colleagueswanted to know how chaos terrains form. Since they couldn’t rocket to Europa tosee for themselves, they searched for similar formations here on Earth. Theystudied collapsed ice shelves in Antarctica and icy caps on volcanoes in Iceland. Thosefeatures on Earth formed when liquid water mixed with ice. The scientists nowsuspect something similar might be happening on Europa: that as water and iceof different temperatures mingle and shift, the surface fractures. This wouldexplain the jumbled ice sculptures.
　　“Fracturing catastrophically disruptsthe ice in the same way that it causes ice shelves to collapse on Earth,”Schmidt told Science News. She and her team found that the process could becausing chaos terrains to form quickly on Europa.
　　The new study suggests that on thismoon, elements such as oxygen from the surface blend with the deep bodies ofwater. That mixture may create an environment that supports life.　
　　16.The liquid water of an underground pool of Europa is estimated xxxxx of the US Greatlakes.
　　A. Right
　　B. Wrong
　　C. Not mention
　　17.The strange ice patterns on Europa are formed as a result of a xxxxx undergroundwater pool.
　　A. Right
　　B. Wrong
　　C. Not mention
　　18.Europa is the most recently discovered one among Jupiter’s
　　A. Right
　　B. Wrong
　　C. Notmention
　　19.The size of Europa is a bit larger than that of Earth’s moon.
　　A. Right
　　B. Wrong
　　C. Not mention
　　20.Schmidt and her colleagues are the first group of scientists xxxxx Europa.
　　A. Right
　　B. Wrong
　　C. Not mention
　　21.The formations on Europa’s surface are rather unique in the
　　A. Right
　　B. Wrong
　　C. Not mention
　　22.The existence of liquid water is a necessity for a life-support
　　A. Right
　　B. Wrong
　　C. Not mention

　　三、概括大意与完成句子

Learnabout Noble Gases（惰性气体）

　　1　Have you ever ridden on a balloon? Many tourist spots offer balloon rides inorder for people to see the beauty of a place from above. A balloon contains anoble gas called helium(氦). Formerly, balloons contained hydrogenbut hydrogen is very flammable and dangerous when uncontrolled. Therefore, peopleshifted to helium, which is safer. Helium is safe because it has the propertiesof the noble gases.
　　2　People once believed that noble gases couldn’t chemically react at all. Forthis reason, they were called inert gases(惰性气体). They werealso listed under Group 0 in theold periodic table because scientists believed that the gases have zero valence(价)electrons in their outer shell. This was later proven to be untrue when somenoble gas compounds were discovered.
　　3 　Thegases are elements, which share similar properties. These properties includebeing monoatomic, colorless, odorless, being able to conduct electricity, andhaving low chemical reactivity. Noble gases include Helium, Neon, Argon,Krypton, Xenon and Radon. These are all found in Group 18, in the rightmostcolumn of the periodic table. If you look at the periodic table, you willnotice that these elements are the only ones, which do not have a charge.Helium has the lowest molecular(分子的) weight whileRadon is the heaviest.
　　4 　Remember that chemical reactions occurbecause atoms have valence electrons, which are electrons in their outer shell.When the outer shell is “unfilled” or the required number of electrons is notyet complete, the atom is more reactive. Noble gases have a full outer shell,meaning that they have complete electrons in their outer shell. This completenumber varies. For instance, the outer shell of Helium has 2 valence electronswhile the outer shell of Xenon has 8 electrons. Nowadays, there remains to be afew noble gases because of the low chemical reactivity of these said gases.
　　A. what is theperiodic table?
　　B. What are noblegases？
　　C. What causes the lowchemical reactivity of noble gases?
　　D. How were noblegases discovered?
　　E. How were noblegases understood in the past?
　　F. what are theapplications of noble gases?
　　5because of their properties, noble gases have many importantapplications. They are widely used in medicine and industries. For instance,liquid Helium is used for superconducting magnets(磁体).These magnets are very important in physics and medicine. When a doctorsuspects that a person’s brain has been damaged, he might request for MagneticResonance Imaging(MRI). MRI allows the doctor to “see” the brain, withoutoperating on the patient.
　　23.paragraph 2__ E ___
　　24.paragraph 3__ B____
　　25.paragraph 4___C____
　　26.paragraph 5___F_____
　　27.Noble gases are not very chemicallyA
　　28.Among the elements of noble gases Helium is theB
　　29.The required number of electrons in noble gases’ outer shell is D
　　30.MRI may make operating on the patientF
　　A. reactive
　　B. lightest
　　C. important
　　D. complete
　　E. flammable
　　F. unnecessary

　

　　四、阅读理解
　　第一篇
　　Gross NationalHappiness
　　In the last century, new technologyimproved the lives of many people in many countries. However, one countryresisted these changes. High in the Himalayan mountains of Asia, the kingdom of Bhutan remained separate. Its people andBuddhist(佛教)culture had not been affected for almost a thousand years. Bhutan,however, was a poor country. People died at a young age. Most of its peoplecould not read, and they did not know much about the outside world. Then, in 1972,a new ruler named King Jigme Singye Wangchuck decided to help Bhutan tobecome modern, but without losing its traditions.
　　King Wangchuck looked at other countriesfor ideas. He saw that most countries measured their progress by their GrossNational Product (GNP). The GNP measures products and money. When the number ofproducts sold increases, people say the country is making progress. KingWangchuck had a different idea for Bhutan. He wanted to measure hiscountry’s progress by people’s happiness. If the people’s happiness increased,the king could say that Bhutanwas making progress. To decide if people were happier, he created a measurecalled Gross National Happiness (GNH).
　　GNH is based on certain principles thatcreate happiness. People are happier if they have health care, education, andjobs. They are happier when they live in a healthy, protected environment. Theyare happier when they can keep their traditional culture and customs. Finally,people are happier when they have a good, stable government.
　　Now there is some evidence of increasedGNH in Bhutan.People are healthier and are living longer. More people are educated andemployed. Teenty-five percent of the land has become national parks, and thecountry has almost no pollution. The Bhutanese continue to wear theirtraditional clothing and follow their ancient Buddhist customs. Bhutan has alsobecome a democracy. In 2008, King Wangchuck gave his power to his son. Althoughthe country still had a king, it held its first democratic elections that year.Bhutanhad political parties and political candidates for the first time. Finally, Bhutan hasconnected to the rest of the world through television and internet.
　　Bhutanis a symbol for social progress. Many countries are now interested in Bhutan’s GNH.These countries are investigating their own ways to measure happiness. Theywant to create new policies that take care of their people, cultures, and land.
　　Brazilmay be the nest country to use the principles of GNH. Brazilian leaders see theprinciples of GNH as a source of inspiration. Brazil is a large country with adiverse population. If happiness works as a measure of progress in Brazil, perhapsthe rest of the world will follow.
　　31.Who was Jigme Singye Wangchuck?
　　A. Apresident.
　　B. A Buddhistpriest.
　　C. A king.
　　D. A general.
　　32.Apart from modernizing Bhutan,what else did Wangchuck want to do for Bhutan?
　　A. To make itspopulation grow.
　　B. To keep itseparate from the world.
　　C. To keep its traditions and customs.
　　D. To encourageits people to get rich.
　　33.A country shows its progress with GNP by
　　A. selling more products.
　　B. spending moremoney.
　　C. spending lessmoney.
　　D. providingmore jobs.
　　34.According to GNH, people are happier if they
　　A. have newtechnology.
　　B. have a good, stable government.
　　C. can changetheir religion.
　　D. have moremoney.
　　35.Today many countries are
　　A. using theprinciples of GNH to measure their progress.
　　B. workingtogether to develop a common scale to measure GNH.
　　C. taking both Bhutan and Brazil as symbols for socialprogress.
　　D. trying to find their own ways tomeasure happiness.
　　第二篇
　　DownloadKnowledge Directly to Your Brain
　　For the first time, researchers havebeen able to hack into the process of learning in the brain, using inducedbrain patterns to create a learned behavior. It’s not quite as advanced as aninstant kung-fu download, and it’s not as sleek as cognitive inception, butit’s still an important finding that could lead to new teaching andrehabilitation techniques.
　　Future therapies could decode the brainactivity patterns of an athlete or a musician, and use them as a benchmark forteaching another person a new activity, according to the researchers.
　　Scientists from BostonUniversity and ATR ComputationalNeuroscience Laboratories in Kyotoused functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to study the learningprocess. They were examining the adult brain’s aptitude for visual perceptuallearning, or VPL, in which repetitive training improves a person’s performanceon a particular task. Whether adults can do this as well as young people hasbeen an ongoing debate in neuroscience.
　　Led by BU neuroscientist Takeo Watanabe,researchers used a method called decoded fMRI neurofeedback to stimulate thevisual cortex. First they showed participants circles at differentorientations. Then they used fMRI to watch the participants’ brain activity.The researchers were then able to train the participants to recreate thisvisual cortex activity.
　　The volunteers were again placed in MRImachines and asked to visualize shapes of certain colors. The participants wereasked to “somehow regulate activity in the posterior part of the brain” to makea solid green disc as large as they could. They were told they would get a paidbonus proportional to the size of this disc, but they weren’t told anythingabout what the disc meant. The researchers watched the participants’ brainactivity and monitored the activation patterns in their visual cortices.
　　“Participants can be trained to control theoverall mean activation of an entire brain region,” the study authors write,“or the activation in one region relative to that in another region.”
　　This worked even when test subjects werenot aware of what they were learning, the researchers said.
　　“The most surprising thing in this study isthat mere inductions of neural activation patterns corresponding to a specificvisual feature led to visual performance improvement on the visual feature,without presenting the feature or subjects' awareness of what was to be learned,”Watanabe said in a statement.
　　Watanabe and colleagues said this methodcan be a powerful tool.
　　“It can ‘incept’ a person to acquire newlearning, skills, or memory, or possibly to restore skills or knowledge thathas been damaged through accident, disease, or aging, without a person’sawareness of what is learned or memorized,” they write.
　　36. what have researchers been ableto do with the help of the study?
　　A. Discover aperson’s learning process in the brain.
　　B. Make a person know how to do something without learning.
　　C. Set up different learning patterns for different people.
　　D. Enable people to learn kung fu instantly.
　　37. what helps aperson to do a particular task better in visual perceptual learning?
　　A. Testing
　　B. Encouragement
　　C. Self- assessment
　　D. Repetition
　　38. which of thefollowing statements is true of the experiment participants?
　　A.They learned how to control MRL machines in the experiment
　　B. They werenot told what to be learned in the experiment
　　C.They were paid to take part in the experiment
　　D.They were not cooperative in the experiment
　　39. the findingof the study is most significant in that learning
　　A. is full offun
　　B. is visualized
　　C. happens unconsciously
　　D. becomes unnecessary
　　40. who are mostlikely to benefit from the study?
　　A. Teenagers
　　B. Musicians
　　C. Senior people
　　D. Athletes
　　第三篇
　　Small But Wise
　　On December 14, NASA1 blasted a smallbut mighty telescope into space. The telescope is called WISE and is about aswide around as a trashcan. Don't let its small size fool you: WISE has apowerful digital camera, and it will be taking pictures of some the wildestobjects2 in the known universe,including asteroids, faint stars, blazing galaxies3 and giant clouds of dustwhere planets and stars are born.
　　“I'mvery excited because we're going to be seeing parts of the universe that wehaven't seen before, ” said Ned Wright, a scientist who directs the WISEproject.
　　Since arriving in space, the WISEtelescope has been circling the Earth, held by gravity in a polar orbit4( thismeans it crosses close to the north and south poles with each lap5). Its camerais pointed outward, away from the Earth, and WISE will snap a picture of adifferent part of the sky every 11 minutes. After six months it will have takenpictures across the entire sky.
　　The pictures taken by WISE won't be likeeveryday digital photographs, however. WISE stands for “Wide-field InfraredSurvey Explorer. ” As its name suggests, the WISE camera takes pictures offeatures that give off infrared radiation6.
　　Radiation is energy that travels as awave. Visible light, including the familiar spectrum of light7 that becomesvisible in a rainbow, is an example of radiation. When an ordinary digitalcamera takes a picture of a tree, for example, it receives the waves of visiblelight that are reflected off the tree. When these waves enter the camerathrough the lens, they're processed by the camera, which then puts the imagetogether.
　　Waves of infrared radiation are longerthan waves of visible light, so ordinary digital cameras don't see them, andneither do the eyes of human beings. Although invisible to the eye, longerinfrared radiation can be detected as warmth by the skin.
　　That's a key idea to why WISE will beable to see things other telescopes can't. Not everything in the universe showsup in visible light. Asteroids, for example, are giant rocks that float throughspace — but they absorb most of the light that reaches them. They don't reflectlight, so they're difficult to see. But they do give off infrared radiation, soan infrared telescope like WISE will be able to produce images of them. Duringits mission WISE will take pictures of hundreds of thousands of asteroids.
　　Brown dwarfs8 are another kind ofdeep-space object that will show up in WISE's pictures. These objects are“failed” stars — which means they are not massive enough to jump start9 thesame kind of reactions that power stars such as the sun. Instead, brown dwarfssimply shrink and cool down. They're so dim that they're almost impossible tosee with visible light, but in the infrared spectrum they glow.
　　41. What is sospecial about WISE?
　　A It is as small as a trashcan.
　　B It is small in size but carries a large camera.
　　C Its digital camera can helpastronomers to see the unknown space.
　　D Never before has a telescope carried a digital camera in space.
　　42. The cameraon WISE
　　A is equipped with expensive computers.
　　B produces images of objects givingoff infrared radiation.
　　C reflects light visible to the human eyes.
　　D is similar to an ordinary digital camera.
　　43. It is truethat infrared radiation.
　　A is not detectable to humans.
　　B looks brighter than visible light.
　　C is visible light reflected off an object.
　　D has longer waves than thoseof visible light.
　　44. Which of thefollowing statements about asteroids is NOT ture?
　　A The WISE telescope can catch and take pictures of them.
　　B They do not reflect light that reaches them.
　　C They float through spacegiving off visible light.
　　D They are invisible to ordinary cameras.
　　45. It can beinferred from the last paragraph that brown dwarfs.
　　A give off infrared radiation.
　　B are power stars like the sun.
　　C become massive and active
　　D are invisible to the WISE telescope.

　五、补全短文

The Mysteries of Nazca

　　In the desert of Peru, 300 kilometersfrom Lima, one of the most unusual artworks in the world has mystified (迷惑)people for decades. F (46) But from high above, these marks are hugeimages of birds, fish, seashells, all beautifully carved into the earth.
　　TheNazca lines are so difficult to see from the ground that they weren’tdiscovered until the 1930s, when pilots spotted them while flying over thearea. In all, there are about 70 different human and animal figures on theplain, along with 900 triangles, circles, and lines.
　　Researchershave figured out that the lines are at least 1,500 years old, but their purposeis still a mystery. D (47) However, it would probably be very trickyto xxxxx and a spaceship in the middle ofpictures of dogs and monkeys.
　　Inthe 1940s, an American explorer named Paul Kosok suggested that the drawingsare a chronicle (记录) of the movement ofthe stars and planets. C (48) xxxxx anastronomer tested his theory with a computer, but he couldn’t find any relationbetween the lines and movements in space.
　　Anotherexplanation is that the lines may have been made for religious reasons. xxxxx researcher Tony Morrison investigated thecustoms of people in the Andes xxxxx and learned that they sometimes pray by the sideof the road. It’s possible that xxxxx, the linesof Nazca were created for a similar purpose. B (49) But xxxxxpeople have never constructed anything this big.
　　Recently,two other scientists, David Johnson and Steve Mabee, have speculated xxxxx lines could have been related to water. Nazca isone of the driest places in the xxxxx receivesonly 2cm of rain every year.While Johnson was searching for xxxxx watersources in the area, he noticed that some waterways built ancient xxxxx were connected with the lines. Johnson believesthat the Nazca lines are a giant xxxxxunderground water in the area. E (50)
　　A.. Scholars differ in interpretingthe purpose of the designs.
　　B. The largestpicture may have been the sites for special ceremonies.
　　C. He calledNazca “the largest astronomy book in the world”
　　D. A Swisswriter named Erich von Daniken wrote that the Nazca lines were designed as alanding place for UFOs.
　　E. Otherscientists are now searching for evidence to prove this.
　　F. Seen from theground, it looks like lines scratched into the earth.

　六、完型填空

Solar Power without Solar Cells

　　A dramatic and surprising magneticeffect of light discovered by University of Michigan1researcherscould lead to solar power without traditional semiconductor-based solar cells.
　　The researchers found a way to make an“optical 　51　,” said Stephen Rand, a professor in thedepartments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Physics and AppliedPhysics.
　　Light has electric and magnetic 　52　.Until now, scientists thought the effect of the magnetic field were so weakthat they could be 　 53　. What Rand and his colleagues found isthat at the right intensity, when light is traveling through a material thatdoes not 　 54　electricity, the light field cangenerate magnetic effects that are 100 million times stronger than previouslyexpected. Under these circumstances, the magnetic effects develop strength 　55　toa strong electric effect.
　　“This could lead to a new kind of solarcell without semiconductors and without absorption to produce charge separation,” Rand said. “In solar cells, the 　 56　goesinto a material, gets absorbed and creates heat. Here, we expect to have a verylow heat load2. Instead of the light being absorbed, energy is stored in themagnetic moment3. Intense magnetization can be induced by intense light andthen it is ultimately capable of providing a capacitive power 　 57　Whatmakes this possible is a previously undetected brand of “opticalrectification,” says William Fisher, a doctoral student in applied physics. Intraditional optical rectification, light's electric field causes a chargeseparation, or a pulling 　58　 of the positive and negative charges ina material. This sets up a voltage, similar to 　59　 in a battery.
　　Rand and Fisher found that under the rightcircumstances and in right types of materials, the light's magnetic field canalso create optical rectification. The light must be shone through　 a 　 60　thatdoes not conduct electricity, such as glass. And it must be focused to anintensity of 10 million watts per square centimeter8. Sunlight isn't this 　61　onits own, but new materials are being sought that would work at lowerintensities, Fisher said.
　　“In our most recent paper, we show thatincoherent light9 like sunlight is theoretically almost 　62　 effectivein producing charge separation as laser light is,” Fisher said.
　　This new 　63　couldmake solar power cheaper, the researchers say. They predict that with improvedmaterials they could achieve 10 percent efficiency in converting solar power touseable energy. That's equivalent to today's commercial-grade solar cells.
　　“To manufacture modem solar cells, youhave to do 　64　semiconductor processing,” Fisher said.“All we would need are lenses to focus the light and a fiber to guide it. Glassworks for 　65　.It's already made in bulk, and itdoesn't require as much processing. Transparent ceramics might be even better.”
　　51.
　　A. disc
　　B. fiber
　　C. instrument
　　D. battery
　　52.
　　A. applications
　　B. components
　　C. resources
　　D. differences
　　53.
　　A. concerned
　　B. ignored
　　C. expected
　　D. noticed
　　54.
　　A. conduct
　　B. produce
　　C.use
　　D. consume
　　55.
　　A. reactive
　　B.preferable
　　C. due
　　D. equivalent
　　56.
　　A. light
　　B. electricity
　　C.chemical
　　D. gas
　　57.
　　A. plant
　　B. source
　　C. equipment
　　D. line
　　58.
　　A. up
　　B. down
　　C. apart
　　D. together
　　59.
　　A. this
　　B. those
　　C. that
　　D.these
　　60.
　　A. material
　　B. device
　　C.detector
　　D. meter
　　61.
　　A. bright
　　B. faint
　　C. visible
　　D. intense
　　62.
　　A. more
　　B. as
　　C. much
　　D. such
　　63.
　　A. skill
　　B. technology
　　C. miracle
　　D. prototype
　　64.
　　A. extensive
　　B. interactive
　　C. selective
　　D.intensive
　　65.
　　A. all
　　B. some
　　C. others
　　D. both

已在各真题中标注了。