It is natural that children are curious (好奇的) about the world around them. For example, they want to know how their hearts beat. They want to know why the ocean water tastes salty.

  As children grow up, they become curious about different kinds of things. When they are babies, they are interested in the parts of their bodies and in the smiles of their mothers. They become interested in the physical world around them: the plants, the animals, the sky. Later, they become interested in the things that people have made: wheels, bicycles, cars. And when they are adults, their curiosity continues. Sometimes this curiosity leads to a career (生涯、职业) in science.

  Scientists spend their lives trying to find out about the world. Those who work with the earth sciences study the earth, the oceans, and the skies. Other scientists who study living things work with the biological sciences. A third group of scientists study the physical sciences, e. g. physics, chemistry .

  These scientists have already discovered a lot about our world. For example, they tell us why your heart beats fast when you run. They say that when you are quiet, your heart normally beats sixty-five or seventy-five times a minute. Your heart is a pump (泵) that pumps blood to all parts of the body. The blood carries oxygen and nutrition. When you run, your muscles work very hard and use the nutrition that the blood carries to them. The muscles need oxygen, too . So your brain sends a signal to the heart. The signal means that the muscles need more nutrition and oxygen. Then the heart beats fast and sends blood quickly to the muscles. It may beat 90 to 140 times a minute.

  Of course, scientists cannot answer all of our questions. If we ask, “Why does the ocean water taste salty” scientists will say that the salt comes from rocks. When a rock gets very hot or very cold, it cracks. Rain falls into cracks. The rain then carries the salt into the earth and into the rivers. The rivers carry the salt into the ocean. But then we ask , “What happens to the salt in the ocean? The ocean does not get saltier every year.” Scientists are not sure about the answer to this question.

  We know a lot about our world, but there are still many answers that we do not have, and we are curious.

According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?

  A.People are curious in the same way.

  B.People in different countries are interested in different things.

  C.Men and women are curious about different things.

  D.People of different ages are interested in different things

Scientists who work with the biological sciences study____.

    A.the earth , the oceans and the sky   B.man-made things

    C.plants and animals   D.ocean water

When you run, your muscles need ____.

A.more nutrition and oxygen    B.more signals   

C.more salt                  D.water

A rock cracks _____.

A.in wet regions       B.in dry regions

C.at very high or very low temperatures     D.when salty water falls in

People are always curious because ____.

A.they cannot explain many things  B.they know nothing about the world

C.they know little about the world  D.they want to be scientists

Humans have observed and explored the oceans since ancient times.But it wasn’t until the 19th century that the scientific study of oceans began.The first major scientific expedition,and the one that firmly established the field of oceanography,was the around-the-world voyage of H.M.S.  Challenger.Setting out from England in 1872,the Challenger spent almost three and a half years gathering a wealth of information about seawater,sea life,and the ocean floor.Major oceanographic expeditions since then have included the South Atlantic voyage of the German ship Meteor in 1926 and the Deep-Sea Drilling Project from 1968 to 1983.Many individuals also have played important roles in advancing our understanding of oceans,beginning with Matthew Fontaine Maury in the mid-1800s;his work on oceanography and navigation led to a uniform system of weather reporting at sea.Since Maury’s time,oceanography has progressed rapidly.Early oceanographers had to contend themselves with tossing buckets overboard to see what they might haul in.Today’s oceanographers are equipped with space images,supercomputer models,and deep-sea robots that can crawl along the seafloor.As they set goals for the future,some oceanographers even dream of doing research in permanently manned stations on the bottom of the oceans.
【小题1】Which of the following statements is true?

A.Humans didn’t explore the oceans until the 19th century.
B.Maury first established the field of oceanography.
C.Maury spent a lot of time in studying seawater,sea life,and the bottom of the ocean.
D.Many individuals also plays a very important part in advancing our understanding of oceans,such as Maury.
【小题2】How many expeditions are mentioned in this passage?
A.Four.B.Three.C.Five.D.Two.
【小题3】What can we infer from the passage?
A.The process of the oceanography has stopped at one time.
B.Maury’s work on oceanography contributes a lot to weather reporting at sea.
C.Nowadays the equipment for studying the oceans needs improving,because it is out of date.
D.The expeditions in the past had great difficulty and made a lot of efforts in order to study the oceans.

Global warming is the process of earth’s atmosphere heating up. Over the last 100 years, the average temperature of earth’s atmosphere has gone up 1 Fahrenheit. The weather has not changed exactly the same way in every area of the planet. But scientists think that the rise in average temperature is already affecting the earth’s climate.
Many scientists now believe that global warming is caused by cutting down trees, producing more trash, and polluting the environment which are some of the reasons why the temperature has gone up. Many scientists believe that the biggest causes of global warming are new human technologies that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The greenhouse effect is not new. Certain gases in the atmosphere, like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane, making it hard for heat energy to go into space. In the past, the climate didn’t change much because nature produced just the right amount of greenhouse gases to deal with it.
Today, most scientists are pretty sure that the rising temperature can’t be blamed on nature. Ever since the industrial revolution in the 1700s, humans have relied on machines for daily life. And many of those machines give off a lot of greenhouse gases. An increase in the release of greenhouse gases from human activities is throwing nature off balance.
The climate is a very complicated thing, but many scientists agree that the rising atmospheric temperature has already damaged the environment. Sheets of ice, called glaciers, are melting in Antarctica and other parts of the globe. As glaciers break off and melt into the oceans, they are adding warm water to the oceans and causing the sea level to rise.
Over the past 100 years, the sea level has risen 6-8 inches around the world. That means land along the coasts is beginning to disappear under water. Bigger and warmer oceans are also adding to other weather problems caused by pollution in the atmosphere. Some places have received more rain, others have had bigger storms and a few areas in the world have experienced unusual droughts.
【小题1】What is mainly talked about in this passage?

A.The melting of glaciers.B.Global warming.
C.The world’s weather.D.The earth’s temperature.
【小题2】What causes global warming according to scientists?
A.Human activities.B.The nature itself.
C.The earth’s atmosphere.D.New discoveries
【小题3】How can greenhouse gases make the globe warm?
A.They keep heat in the atmosphere.
B.They let the heat go out into space.
C.They release heat into the air
D.They can make the other gases warm.
【小题4】From the passage we can see that global warming will bring about _____.
A.the pollution in the atmosphereB.natural disasters
C.population pollutionD.the rise of glaciers

With alarming regularity, we read about oil tankers having accidents near land and the terrible consequences of the oil spills(泄露) on people, nature, and the environment.

    Millions of dollars have been used in developing special chemicals to help dismiss the spills and to clean up the animals, beaches, and land spoiled by the oil.Unfortunately, when many of these chemicals are used, more damage is caused to the environment, especially to lives in the sea.

    Of all of today’s environmental disasters, an oil spill may actually be one of the least serious.Although oil is poisonous, it is a natural material.In the end, it breaks down naturally.There are, of course, long-term effects, but it is usually more serious in the short term.

    Nature by itself works better than chemical materials, but when there is a spill we demand that governments act immediately with as much hi-tech knowledge as possible.In 1967 the tanker Torrey Canyon sank off the Sicily Isles near the coast of England and spilled 120,000 tones of oil into the ocean.If you go there today, you will find it hard to see any sign that it ever happened.

    Governments seem to accept the risk of transporting millions of tons of oil by ship every day so that we can fill up our cars and drive around and cause even more environmental damage.Interestingly, the biggest companies in the world produce cars, and the next biggest supply the gasoline to make them run!

We should be thinking more about reducing our dependency on oil.Governments should be encouraging research into new technologies, such as cars run by solar power(太阳能), electricity, hydrogen, and so on.Much of this research has, in the past, been held back by the oil, gas, and coal.

If the world’s millions of cars were 10% more efficient(高效的)— and the industry could easily produce cars at least twice as efficient — we would need many fewer tankers crossing the oceans each year.If this happened, the risks of oil spills would be reduced, and the air we breathe would be cleaner and fresher, too.

1.What is the passage mainly talking about?

    A.Oil tanker accidents.           B.Oil spills pollution.

    C.What oil pollution is.          D.How to reduce oil pollution.

2.How does the author support the idea that oil spills are not as serious as people believe?

    A.By giving a description.        B.By making an argument.

    C.By giving an example.           D.By drawing a diagram.

3.What does the underlined word “risk” in Paragraph 5 refer to?

    A.Transportation depending more on oil.

    B.Poisonous oil breaking down naturally.

    C.Millions of tons of oil spilling into the sea.

    D.More environmental damage being caused.

4.Which suggestion is made for reducing oil tank accidents according to the passage?

    A.We should develop new technologies to cut oil use 

B.Tankers should not be allowed to sail near the coastlines.

    C.We should build safer oil tankers in the near future.

D.Countries should build more oil pipelines under the sea.

 

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