Women have been making scientific discoveries since ancient times. Twelve women have won the Nobel Prize for science, one of the highest honors in the world. Some women scientists never married,some worked with their husbands, and others raised large families. It has been difficult for women to be successful scientists.

 In the early 1800s in England, Mary Anning became one of the first women recognized for her discoveries about the ancient history of the earth. Mary and her father collected fossils(4匕石) in their village on the south coast of Great Britain. Fossils are parts of plants or animals that have been saved in rocks for millions of years.

 When she was only twelve years old,Mary became the first person to find the almost com?plete skeletons(骨架) of several animals that no longer existed on earth. She didn't become fa?mous for her discoveries at that time because she often sold her fossils to get money to support her family.

In 1891 ,a young Polish woman named Marie Sklodowska traveled to Paris to study phys?ics. She did so because she could not get a college education inPoland. She began working in the laboratory of a man named Pierre Curie. Marie and Pierre Curie got married and made many discoveries together. They received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 along with another sci?entist. Marie Curie became the first person to be awarded a second Nobel Prize in 1911,this time for Chemistry. Marie Curie was one of the few women at the time who became famous as a scientist.

(   ) 1. Mary Anning was one of the first women to         .

   A.win the Nobel Prize for Science after getting married

   B.make achievements in the study of ancient Earth

   C.research animals and their bones

   D.study the mystery of all kinds of plants

(   ) 2. What can we learn about Marie Sklodowska?

   A.She studied physics inPolandand got a college education.

   B.She received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 on her own.

   C.She only got one Nobel Prize during her lifetime.

   D.She made many discoveries together with her husband after she got married. 

(   ) 3. What's the passage mainly about?

   A. Ancient discoveries.   B. Women scientists.

   C.  Successful marriages.   D. Different prizes.

  Scientist Florence Wambugu works with farmers in Kenya, a country in East Africa. She helps them grow bigger and better crops. Wambugu is especially interested in finding simple ways to produce more food.

In the past ten years,Wambugu has spent much of her time studying sweet potatoes, which are an important food in her part of Kenya. A virus kept attacking the plants. It stopped the sweet potatoes from growing well. Because of the virus,some farmers lost three quarters of their crops.

Wambugu went to war against the virus. Her search for a way to save the sweet potatoes led to a lab in St. Louis, Missouri.

  The lab mainly works on genes, the chemical " computer programs" found in the cells of living things. Genes tell a plant to produce pink flowers or an animal to grow black hair. Now scientists have found ways to move genes from one living thing to another. That process is called genetic engineering.

  Wambugu spent three years in the lab. As a result, she created a sweet potato plant that could fight off the virus. Wambugu tested her research in Kenya, and her plants produced won?derful sweet potatoes.

  That's just the beginning, Wambugu believes. Genetically modified foods, she thinks,could help farmers in poor countries grow badly-needed crops,thus,fewer people will go hun?gry-

(   ) 1 . The text is written mainly to        .

   A.tell us sweet potatoes are in danger of being attacked by virus

   B.introduce Wambugu's contribution to genetic engineering

   C.introduce a new way of killing plant viruses

   D.tell how hard Wambugu worked in her lab for three years

(   ) 2. What caused Wambugu to set up a lab in St. Louis, Missouri?

   A.Her wish to save sweet potatoes inKenya.

   B.Her great interest in genetic engineering.

   C.her love for sweet potatoes.

   D.Her interest in plant life.

(   ) 3. The fourth paragraph mainly explains what        is.

   A. a crop virus   B. chemical technology

   C.  a computer program   D. genetic engineering

(   ) 4. What is Wambugu's attitude toward "genetic engineering"?

   A.It will help more hungry people.

   B.It should be carefully used.

   C.It has more disadvantages than advantages.

   D.It is a too expensive technology at present.

(   ) 5. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?

  A.Florence Wambugu often helps farmers with their work.

   B.Florence Wambugu has studied sweet potatoes for 10 years.

   C.Genes can be moved from one thing to another.

   D.Florence Wambugu has succeeded in creating a genetically modified sweet pota?toes.

   What is it that makes people laugh? More than two thousand years ago the ancient Greek philosopher(哲学家) Aristotle defined(定义) jokes as the pleasure that results from a feeling of triumph by showing we're better than someone else in a certain way. According to Aristotle and many other philosophers,all jokes depend mainly on showing inferiority in another person or group of persons ― that is, putting it clearly, on showing that they are worse off than ourselves. Jokes raise our good opinion of ourselves at someone else's expense.

  Showing how much better than other people we are is only one reason we like jokes. Some?one may also use a joke to express their anger or their cruelty (残酷) or any other kind of action that is not acceptable to us. We feel free to laugh when we hear about someone sliding on a ba?nana skin. The joke lets us express those attitudes which are usually unacceptable to society. This is probably the reason why some of the jokes,especially those involving cruelty,are so popular with certain people.

  Besides, all jokes depend on our enjoyment of laughing at something that is strange and out of place because it's different from things which are happening around it. The same situation can be either sad or pleasant, depending entirely on how strange and out of place it is. If a girl in a bathing suit falls into a swimming pool, we don't laugh because nothing unusual has happened. But if a man in a smart suit falls in,the situation is at once unusual in a pleasant way and we laugh. A good joke-teller will always try to build up a situation in which one thing is expected until something unexpected suddenly happens, and so we laugh.

(   ) 1. The underlined word "inferiority" in Paragraph 1 means        .

   A. someone that is better than someone else

   B.something that is better than something else

   C.someone that is as good as someone else

   D.something that is not as good as something else

(   ) 2. According to Aristotle all jokes depend mainly on        .

   A.resulting in a sense of success

   B.showing inferiority in another person or group

   C.having a good opinion of other people

   D.making people laugh unexpectedly 

(   ) 3. What's the main idea of Paragraph 2?

   A.To express those attitudes usually unacceptable to society is one of the reasons we like jokes.

   B.When people are angry they would like to hear jokes.

   C.People who like jokes are usually cruel.

   D.  Showing we are better than other people is the only one reason we like jokes. 

(   ) 4. What will a good joke-teller always try to do?

   A.Make an unexpected thing happen in an expected situation

   B.Make different things happen at the same time.

   C.Make a sad situation into a pleasant one.

   D.Make people laugh at something unusual and out of place.

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