题目内容
Identifying young people with the potential to be great athletes has become a serious, business around the world. Many countries, including Australia, have sophisticated(复杂) programs for identifying and nurturing(培养) talent.
The AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) already runs a program that identifies potential winners starting from the age of 12 based on their physical and physiological(生理的) abilities.
Could genetics improve these programs? The problem is that no one gene test is ever going to do an accurate job of identifying someone with the physical attributes of a sporting champion, says Professor North.
"We can think of the elite athlete as what I'd call a complex phenotype(表现型)," she says. “There are going to be a large number of different genes involved. Any one single test is unlikely to be highly predictive.”
Professor Peter Fricker, director of the AIS, agrees. Although he is intrigued in the possibilities of genetic testing, he says using such tests to identify athletes would be difficult. "The feeling I have is that it won't be that easy," he says. "Talent selection is not just about your genes."
Since 2004, the AIS has been forbidden by government from any involvement in genetic work, including genetic testing. But Professor Fricker thinks that is likely to change in the near future. "There's been a shift in view more recently," he says.
When it does, the AIS will resume its work on the genetics of sports performance, Professor Fricker says. They would be particularly interested in looking for more genes that might help shape elite performance, but also for genes that increase the risk of injury.
Last year, the Human Genetics Society of Australasia issued a position statement on gene testing for sport, after concerns that people could use tests to steer children into particular sports.
“The Human Genetics Society thinks there are not enough data to use these tests for determining what sport kids should do,” said Professor David Thorburn, president of the society.
He stressed that genetic tests should not be performed on children, except in very specific medical circumstances.
57．The aim of the AIS’s program is to .
A．predict how genes are connected with injuries
B．find potential great athletes
C．find out what qualities a professor has through gene tests
D．turn an athlete into a champion by transferring genes
58．By saying “Talent selection is not just about your genes”, Fricker means .
A．effort is more important than genes in most cases
B．you can’t choose an athlete just depending on genes
C．to research one’s genes takes a long time
D．most people don’t believe in genetic tests
59．The underlined word “resume” in Para. 7 can be replaced by .
A．stop B．complete C．reduce D．continue.
60．What’s Professor David Thorburn’s attitude towards genetic tests?
A．Genetic tests have a negative effect on children.
B．Genetic tests, under certain conditions, can be conducted on children.
C．Genetic tests can reduce the risk of athletes’ injuries.
D．People could use genetic tests to decide what sport kids should take.
【小题1】B
【小题2】B
【小题3】D
【小题4】B
解析
You never see him, but they're with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to endure almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They're known as the black box.
When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean on June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine (潜水艇) detected the box's homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.
In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the box was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.
Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots' conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments. Placed in an insulated (隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can stand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉. When submerged, they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they're still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane's black boxes were never recovered.
【小题1】What does the author say about the black box?
| A．It is an indispensable device on an airplane. |
| B．The idea for its design comes from a comic book. |
| C．Its ability to avoid disasters is incredible. |
| D．It ensures the normal functioning of an airplane. |
| A．witness | B．experience | C．resist | D．ensure |
| A．New materials became available by that time. |
| B．Too much space was needed for its installation. |
| C．The early models didn't provide the needed data. |
| D．The early models often got damaged in the crash. |
| A．There is an urgent need for them to be reconstructed. |
| B．There is still a good chance of their being recovered. |
| C．They have stopped sending homing signals. |
| D．They were destroyed somewhere near Brazil. |
You never see him, but they're with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to endure almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They're known as the black box.
When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean on June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine (潜水艇) detected the box's homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.
In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the box was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.
Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots' conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments. Placed in an insulated (隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can stand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉. When submerged, they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they're still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane's black boxes were never recovered.
【小题1】What does the author say about the black box?
| A．It is an indispensable device on an airplane. |
| B．The idea for its design comes from a comic book. |
| C．Its ability to avoid disasters is incredible. |
| D．It ensures the normal functioning of an airplane. |
| A．witness | B．experience | C．resist | D．ensure |
| A．New materials became available by that time |
| B．Too much space was needed for its installation. |
| C．The early models didn't provide the needed data. |
| D．The early models often got damaged in the crash. |
| A．There is an urgent need for them to be reconstructed. |
| B．There is still a good chance of their being recovered. |
| C．They have stopped sending homing signals. |
| D．They were destroyed somewhere near Brazil. |
Plants have family values, too; it seems, with new research suggesting they can recognize close relatives in order to work together.
An ability to tell family from strangers is well known in animals, allowing them to cooperate and share resources, but plants may possess similar social skills, scientists believe.
Susan Dudley and Amanda File of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, report they have demonstrated for the first time that plants can recognize their kin.
This suggests that plants, though lacking recognition and memory, are capable of complex social interactions.
“Plants have this kind of hidden but complicated social life，” Dudley said.
The study found plants from the same species of beach-dwelling wildflower grew aggressively alongside unrelated neighbors but were less competitive when they shared soil with their families.
Sea rocket, a North American species, showed stronger and healthier root growth when planted in pots with strangers than when raised with relatives from the same maternal(母系的) family, the study found.
This is an example of kin selection, a behavior common in animals in which closely related individuals take a group approach to succeeding in their environment, the researchers said.
Kin selection also applies to competition, because if family members compete less with each other, the group will do better overall. “Everywhere you look, plants are growing right up next to other plants，” Dudley said，“ Usually it’s a case of each plant for itself. But sometimes those plants are related, and there are benefits to not wasting resources on being competitive, and there is not really a cost to not being competitive as long as your neighbor is also not being competitive.”
Learning and memory appear to be important for kin recognition in animals, but this isn’t an option for plants, she noted.
Some researchers speculate(猜测) that plants communicate through their roots, identifying themselves using tiny chemical signatures specific to each plant’s family.
【小题1】What’s the main idea of the message?
| A．Studies find plants can recognize, communicate with relatives. |
| B．Kin selection is important for plants. |
| C．Animals can recognize and memorize their relatives. |
| D．Competition asks plants to recognize their relatives. |
| A．Animals can recognize and memorize their relatives. |
| B．Animals’ social skill is to cooperate and share resources. |
| C．Animals’ social skill can recognize close relatives in order to work together. |
| D．Animals’ social skill is no use at all. |
| A．grow well | B．compete with other kinds of plants |
| C．strengthen the relationship among siblings | D．find which one is the best |
| A．sea rocket is a South American species |
| B．sea rocket grows aggressively alongside unrelated neighbors |
| C．sea rocket grows aggressively alongside its siblings |
| D．sea rocket is a kind of bush without flowers |
| A．Plants communicate by using tiny chemical signatures specific to each plant’s family. |
| B．Plants communicate with each other through their roots. |
| C．Plants communicate with each other by their leaves. |
| D．Plants communicate with each other with their flowers. |