题目内容
Over the summer, 18-years-old Roberto Mancera of Chandler wasn't looking forward to dances,
football games or even his last year in high school.He was more excited about building a robot that will
compete in the sixth annual FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC)Arizona Regional.
FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, a nonprofit
organization that believes the heroes of today's youth should be engineers, not sports or pop stars.They
aim to change the culture by hosting athleticlike competitions for robots,with cheering fans, mascots (吉祥物) and music.
Mancera and a team of about 14 of his schoolmates will compete this year against 44 other high
school teams from all over Arizona,California and New Mexico at the Arizona Veterans Memorial
Coliseum in Phoenix.Finalists will move on to the FRC 2009 Championship in Atlanta to face teams from
48 states and seven other countries.
For the 40 regional events worldwide, a similar“ kit (工具包) of parts” is given to each of the 1,680
teams from around the globe every January.The robot functions are different every year, and after a
sixweek building season, robots are boxed up and shipped off to the competition's destination.
The competition has a minimum $6,000 entrance fee, and students are sponsored and mentored by
adult professionals and experts,like computer science teacher Sam Alexander, 39, at Chan
dler High.“I
try to give the kids the challenge and they try to figure it out,” he said.“They work through the entire
scientific method without me giving them the answers.”
FIRST students are also eligible(有资格的)to apply for $9.7 million in college scholarships,
something that Alexander's students have taken advantage of.
“You learn skills that your average student isn't learning.” Mancera said.“It's really amazing, and I've
been able to meet a lot of interesting people.” Mancera said that he found himself when he joined the
robot ics team.He now has set a career goal and has learned valuable leadership skills.
B.choose heroes for today's youth
C.develop the interest of young people in sports
D.create a culture of valuing technology
B.decorated similarly
C.a teammade product
D.a copy of famous robots
B.Controlled.
C.Judged.
D.Replaced
B.He has become the hero for his classmates.
C.It has helped him to decide his future career.
D.It has allowed him to make a lot of friends with the same interest.
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阅读理解(共20小题; 每小题2分,满分40分)
阅读下列短文,从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中,选出最佳选项。
I felt encouraged by his words and began to swim more calmly.But my clothes stuck to me like a heavy weight.I could hardly stay above the surface.
Counsel saw this.“Shall I cut them?”he asked.
With a knife he cut my clothes from top to bottom and took them of quickly while I swam for both of us.
Then I did the same for Counsel,and we continued to swim near each other.
But we were in serious trouble.The crew(船员)might not have noticed our disappearance.
And if they had,they could not return because the rudder(舵)had broken.Counsel thought of all this,and calmly made his plans.We decided to wait for the ship as long as possible,because we had no other hope of safety.I suggested that we save our strength so that both of us would not be tired out at the same time.This was how we did it:While one of us lay on his back,quite still,with arms crossed and legs stretched out(伸直),the other would swim and push him along.We changed every ten minutes or so.In this way we could swim for hours,perhaps till daylight.The crash(破裂声)of the ship and the whale(鲸)had appeared at about eleven o’clock.We had about eight hours to swim before daylight.This seemed possible,if the sea remained calm.
【小题1】What happened to the man who told the story?
| A.He and his companion got into the water to test their strength. |
| B.He jumped into the water to save the broken rudder. |
| C.He was knocked into the water by his enemy. |
| D.He was thrown into the sea when the ship struck a whale. |
| A.Because no people helped them to take off their clothes. |
| B.Because they couldn’t take off their clothes on the sea. |
| C.Because they wanted to get rid of their clothes quickly. |
| D.Because they wanted to lifebuoys(救生圈)with their clothes. |
| A.not moving | B.even | C.yet | D.however |
| A.one of them pushed the other while swimming and then they changed |
| B.they both swam calmly |
| C.they crossed their arms and stretched their legs on the water |
| D.they lay on their backs instead of swimming |
| A.Neither of the two men was good swimmers. |
| B.The sea was calm before eleven o’clock that night. |
| C.The story took place at night. |
| D.The two men had to swim eight hours to catch up with the ship. |