Something big is happening to the human race, something that could be called the Great Transformation.
The Transformation consists of all the changes that are occurring in human life due to advancing technology. For thousands of years such progress occurred slowly. Now everything is changing so fast that you may find yourself wondering where all this progress is really leading.
Nobody knows what all these changes will really mean in the long run. But this mysterious Transformation is the biggest story of all times. It is the story of the human race itself.
Some people worry about what will happen when the deposits(蕴藏)of petroleum are gone, but already researchers are finding all kinds of new ways to get energy. Someday, solar power collected by satellites circling the earth or fission(裂变) power produced by mankind may give us all the energy we need for an expanding civilization(文明).Space exploraton promises to open up much new land for human settlement, as well as leading to the harvest of mineral resources.
Like it or not, our advancing technology has made us masters of the earth. We not only control all the other animals, but also reshape the world’s plant life and even its soil and rocks, its waters and surrounding air.
Technology gives us the power to build a great new civilizaion, if we can just agee on what we want it to be, bu today, there is little global agreement on goals and how we should achieve them.
So it remanins to be seen what will happen as a result of our technology. Pessimists(悲观主义者) worry that we will use the technology eventually to blow ourselves up. But they have been saying that for decades, and so far we have escaped. Whether we will continue to do so remains unknown, but we can continue to hope.
68.The Great Transformation is caused by ________.
A. changes in human life    B.the development of science and technology
C. space exploration        D. unknown reasons
69.Today it is impossible for people to build a remarkable new civilization because __________.  A.nobody is optimistic about the future
B.human beings aare unabale to do so
C.people diagree with each other in many ways
D.people are worried too much
70.Advancing technology could possibly make us_______.
A.hesitate    B.decisive      C.powerless      D.mysterious

                              Something big is happening to the human race, something that could be called the Great Transformation.

The Transformation consists of all the changes that are occurring in human life due to advancing technology. For thousands of years such progress occurred slowly. Now everything is changing so fast that you may find yourself wondering where all this progress is really leading.

Nobody knows what all these changes will really mean in the long run. But this mysterious Transformation is the biggest story of all times. It is the story of the human race itself.

Some people worry about what will happen when the deposits(蕴藏)of petroleum are gone, but already researchers are finding all kinds of new ways to get energy. Someday, solar power collected by satellites circling the earth or fission(裂变) power produced by mankind may give us all the energy we need for an expanding civilization(文明).Space exploraton promises to open up much new land for human settlement, as well as leading to the harvest of mineral resources.

Like it or not, our advancing technology has made us masters of the earth. We not only control all the other animals, but also reshape the world’s plant life and even its soil and rocks, its waters and surrounding air.

Technology gives us the power to build a great new civilizaion, if we can just agee on what we want it to be, bu today, there is little global agreement on goals and how we should achieve them.

So it remanins to be seen what will happen as a result of our technology. Pessimists (悲观主义者) worry that we will use the technology eventually to blow ourselves up. But they have been saying that for decades, and so far we have escaped. Whether we will continue to do so remains unknown, but we can continue to hope.

68.The Great Transformation is caused by ________.

A. changes in human life    B.the development of science and technology

C. space exploration        D. unknown reasons

 69.Today it is impossible for people to build a remarkable new civilization because __________.  A.nobody is optimistic about the future

B.human beings aare unabale to do so

C.people diagree with each other in many ways

D.people are worried too much

 70.Advancing technology could possibly make us_______.

    A.hesitate    B.decisive      C.powerless      D.mysterious

                              Something big is happening to the human race, something that could be called the Great Transformation.

The Transformation consists of all the changes that are occurring in human life due to advancing technology. For thousands of years such progress occurred slowly. Now everything is changing so fast that you may find yourself wondering where all this progress is really leading.

Nobody knows what all these changes will really mean in the long run. But this mysterious Transformation is the biggest story of all times. It is the story of the human race itself.

Some people worry about what will happen when the deposits(蕴藏)of petroleum are gone, but already researchers are finding all kinds of new ways to get energy. Someday, solar power collected by satellites circling the earth or fission(裂变) power produced by mankind may give us all the energy we need for an expanding civilization(文明).Space exploraton promises to open up much new land for human settlement, as well as leading to the harvest of mineral resources.

Like it or not, our advancing technology has made us masters of the earth. We not only control all the other animals, but also reshape the world’s plant life and even its soil and rocks, its waters and surrounding air.

Technology gives us the power to build a great new civilizaion, if we can just agee on what we want it to be, bu today, there is little global agreement on goals and how we should achieve them.

So it remanins to be seen what will happen as a result of our technology. Pessimists(悲观主义者) worry that we will use the technology eventually to blow ourselves up. But they have been saying that for decades, and so far we have escaped. Whether we will continue to do so remains unknown, but we can continue to hope.

68.The Great Transformation is caused by ________.

A. changes in human life    B.the development of science and technology

C. space exploration        D. unknown reasons

 69.Today it is impossible for people to build a remarkable new civilization because __________.  A.nobody is optimistic about the future

B.human beings aare unabale to do so

C.people diagree with each other in many ways

D.people are worried too much

 70.Advancing technology could possibly make us_______.

    A.hesitate    B.decisive      C.powerless      D.mysterious

Planetary changes which will have an influence on many are drawing near because of the poor ecological (生态的) state of the planet. Actually change has already begun through climate changes, but most humans haven’t noticed this yet. Climate change has begun to influence the world already and will begin to worsen within the next few years. Around 2020 most people will begin to see that the results of climate change will be far more serious than now understood.

As the planet is under big geological (地质的)stresses, which are continuously increasing, it will in the future no longer be able to support its population. Scarcity (缺乏) of resources, over-farming, lack of clean air, not enough clean drinking water and drought are some of the issues that will all play a much greater role in the near future.

Humans have caused large ecological devastation (破坏). The lifestyles of many people are improving at a fast speed; however, this will finally result in a lack of some precious resources. When this scarcity begins to happen, people will no longer be able to have sustainable (可支撑的) lifestyles.

It’s important to understand that everyone plays a role in the whole process of life. Each person’s decision can finally affect the future. These decisions, all combined, can have good effect on what the future will be like for humans. So the future depends on the choices we make at the present moment.

While more and more people are becoming aware of climate change and other environmental problems related to global warming, not all are fully understanding how far-reaching its effects will be. Unfortunately, most of the humans are aware that the planet isn’t functioning well, but they don’t understand that this is creating a major problem for the future survival of humans.

So, every person should make the necessary changes to reduce their influence on the environment and help create a more sustainable future.

61. Which is the best title for the text?

A. The Causes of Planetary Changes.

B. The Influence of Ecological Devastation

C. The Ways of Building a Sustainable Future

D. Environmental Damage and the Human Future

62. We can learn from the first paragraph that _________

A. planetary changes are caused by global warming

B. climate changes will affect the life of humans soon

C. the ecological state of the earth has been destroyed

D. most people don’t realize the danger of climate changes

63. What opinion does the author most probably hold?

A. Humans shouldn’t try to improve their lifestyles.

B. The future we’ll have depends on every one of us.

C. The ecological devastation is coming to a stop soon.

D. The future of humans can be determined ahead of time.

64. In the last paragraph the author is trying to____________.

A. encourage people to make efforts to protect the environment

B. call on people to work hard to make their future better

C. warn people of the dangers of ecological devastation

D. tell people the right way to protect the environment

65. The author’s attitude in writing this text is ____________.

A. indifferent              B. negative               C. serious                 D. humorous

Trying to make a big decision while you’re also preparing for a scary presentation? You might want to hold off on that. Feeling stressed changes how people weigh risk and reward. However, an article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests stressed people pay more attention to the positive sides of a possible outcome.
It’s a bit surprising that stress makes people focus on the way things could go right, says Mara Mather of the University of Southern California. She co-wrote the review paper with Nichole R.Lighthall. “This is sort of not what people would think, ” Mather says. “Stress is usually associated with negative experiences, so you’d think, maybe I’m going to be more focused on the negative outcomes.”
But researchers have found that when people are under stress, they start paying more attention to positive information and discounting negative information. “Stress seems to help people learn from positive feedback and impairs（削弱）their learning from negative feedback, ” Mather says.
When people under stress are making a difficult decision, they may pay more attention to the good sides of the alternatives they’re considering and less to the problems. So someone who’s deciding whether to take a new job and is feeling stressed by the decision might focus on the increase in salary more than the longer commute（上下班往返）.
The increased focus on the positives also helps explain why stress plays a role in addictions. People under stress have a harder time controlling their urges. “The compulsion to get that reward comes stronger and they’re less able to resist it,” Mather says. A person who’s under stress might think only about the good feelings they’ll get from a drug, while the downsides shrink into the distance.
Stress also increases the differences in how men and women think about risk. When men are under stress, they become even more willing to take risks; when women are stressed, they get more conservative(保守的). Previous research backs this up — men usually react to difficulties while trying to fight them or escape them; women try to find friends and improve their relationships.
【小题1】By saying “You might want to hold off on that” in the first paragraph, the writer suggests that      .