Endangered languages are languages that wouldn’t exist any longer, much like endangered species of plants or animals. Languages are considered to be endangered when parents are no longer teaching the language to their children and are not using it actively in everyday life. A language is considered to nearly disappear when it is spoken by only a few elderly native speakers.
The world faces enormous challenges in order to protect different kinds of languages. Of the more than 6,912 languages, half may be in danger of disappearing in the next several decades.
It is caused by many reasons: small numbers of speakers, the regular use of other languages, attitudes towards their languages, moving of the younger population, government policies, and languages used in education and so on. A language may lack important things such as a body of literature, and people who read and write it. A language may also lack prestige (声望) and support of its speakers.
The survival of a language is also threatened when speakers move to other areas where different languages are spoken, or when government policies improve the use of a specific language in school, official business and the media. These situations encourage people to learn the wider-known language and may cause them, especially the young, to stop using their mother tongue. Often those speaking lesser-known languages will choose to learn a more prestigious language with the hope of greater economic opportunities. Most of the world’s parents are teaching their children English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Russian or some other main languages instead of their own languages for social and economic reasons.
【小题1】What’s the main idea of this passage?

Space is a dangerous place. not only because of meteors (流星) but also because of rays from the sun and other stars. The Atmosphere again acts as our protective blanket on earth. Light gets through, and this is essential for plants to make the food which we eat. Heat, too, makes our environment endurable. Various kinds of rays come through the air from outer space, but enormous quantities of radiation from the sun are screened off. As soon as men leave the atmosphere they are exposed to this radiation but their spacesuits or the walls of their spacecraft, if they are inside, do prevent a lot of radiation damage.

    Radiation is the greatest known danger to explorers in space. The unit of radiation is called “rem”. Scientists have reason to think that a man can put up with far more radiation than 0.1 rem without being damaged; the figure of 60 rems has been agreed on. The trouble is that it is extremely difficult to be sure about radiation damage-a person may feel perfectly well, but the cells of his or her sex organs may be damaged, and this will not be discovered until the birth of deformed (畸形的) children or even grandchildren. Missions of the Apollo flights have had to cross belts of high radiation and, during the outward and return journeys, the Apollo crew accumulated a large amount of rems. So far, no dangerous amounts of radiation have been reported, but the Apollo missions have been quite short. We simply do not know yet how men are going to get on when they spend weeks and months outside the protection of the atmosphere, working in a space laboratory. Drugs might help to decrease the damage done by radiation, but no really effective ones have been found so far.

1. According to the first paragraph, the atmosphere is essential to man in that ______.

A. it protects him against the harmful rays from space    

B. it provides sufficient light for plant growth

C. it supplies the heat necessary for human survival      

D. it screens off the falling meteors

2. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.

A. the Apollo mission was very successful        

B. protection from space radiation is no easy job

C. astronauts will have deformed children or grandchildren

D. radiation is not a threat to well-protected space explorers

3. The best title for this passage would be ________.

A. The Atmosphere and Our Environment   B. Research on Radiation.

C. Effects of Space Radiation             D. Importance of Protection Against Radiation

The huge explosion at Krakatau was the result of two different factors. One was that the volcano had not broken out for some time and so at the very center of the volcano there was an huge plug of lava, this acted like a cork(塞子) in a bottle, stopping the pressure below from being released(释放). The second factor was that ocean water entered the very centre of the volcano as the explosions became more violent. This caused superheated steam to build up enormous pressure and this was finally released in the largest explosion of all on August 27, 1883. The sudden release of the pressure sent huge amounts of ash, rock and dust into the sky. Some of the ash rose 80km into the air and traveled around the Earth causing brightly coloured sunsets for several years.

Krakatau almost disappeared; for many years after this explosion, it remained very quiet. However, there was still activity going on under the sea and on 25 January, 1925, a small volcanic cone appeared above the surface of the water. This new volcano was named Anak Kmkatau, or Child of Krakatau. Over the following years, the size of the island grew larger, by 1959, the island was 300 metres above the surface of the sea. The volcanic activity has continued and the latest eruptions were in 1995.

There is no doubt Krakatar will continue to grow and there is also strong evidence that at some point in the future there will be another violent explosion. Krakatau is in a part of the world where the surface of the Earth is unstable and is always moving and cracking. If, in the future, another “cork” becomes fixed in the centre of the volcano, the pressure will build up. A series of a smaller explosions will allow sea-water into the centre of the volcano and once again the result will a terribly destructive explosion.

66. The latest eruptions were in_______.

A.1925           B. 1959           C. 1995          D. 1983

67. The pressure under the volcano can not be released because _______

the plug looks like a cork in a bottle

the volcano hasn’t broken out for some time

the center of the volcano is blocked(堵塞) by lava

the temperature of the steam is not high enough.

68. We can infer from the article that Krakatau volcano________

A. has broken out three times               B. never dies but continues to be active

C. will kill many people again in the future    D. is always moving and growing above sea.

69. All of the following results are caused by the explosion at Krakatau EXCEPT that_____

A. ash, rock and dust was thrown high into the air

B. others small volcanoes were soon produced.

C. The island of Kratau was destroyed

D. People saw beautiful sunsets for some years

70. The article is mainly about________

A. the cause of the Krakatau volcano      B. the danger of the Krakatau volcano

C. the history of the Krakatau volcano     D. the future of the Krakatau volcano