题目内容
She explains English grammar ________ clearly ________ even I can understand it．
even…if…
so…that…
as…if…
but…and…
Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs? What about a hurricane? A meteorologist has done some estimates and the results might surprise you.
Let's start with a very simple white puffy cloud — a cumulus cloud（积云）. How much does the water in a cumulus cloud weigh? Peggy LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, did the numbers. "The water in the little cloud weighs about 550 tons," she calculates. "Or if you want to convert it to something that might be a little more meaningful … think of elephants."
The thought of a hundred elephants-worth of water suspended in the sky begs another question — what keeps it up there?
"First of all, the water isn't in elephant sized particles（微粒）, it's in tiny tiny tiny particles," explains LeMone. And those particles float on the warmer air that's rising below. But still, the concept of so much water floating in the sky was surprising even to a meteorologist like LeMone. "I had no idea how much a cloud would weigh, actually, when I started the calculations," she says.
So how many elephant units of water are inside a big storm cloud—10 times bigger all the way around than the "puffy" cumulus cloud? Again, LeMone did the numbers: About 200,000 elephants.
Now, ratchet up the calculations for a hurricane about the size of Missouri and the figures get really massive. "What we're doing is weighing the water in one cubic meter theoretically pulled from a cloud and then multiplying by the number of meters in a whole hurricane," she explains.
The result? Forty million elephants. That means the water in one hurricane weighs more than all the elephants on the planet. Perhaps even more than all the elephants that have ever lived on the planet.
【小题1】The weight of is NOT mentioned in the passage.
| A．a cumulus cloud | B．a tornado | C．a hurricane | D．a storm cloud |
| A．She found it not convincing. |
| B．She thought it needed further calculations. |
| C．She was quite surprised at it. |
| D．She considered the calculations inaccurate. |
| A．A storm cloud weighs about 200,000 elephants. |
| B．The water in a hurricane weighs more than that in any other kind of cloud. |
| C．There are less than forty million elephants living on the earth. |
| D．The water in the cloud is in very tiny partials. |
Family Vs Technology
Modern technology certainly changes family behavior, but does it really damage family life as many people fear? Not necessarily, says Dr. Silva, a professor in Sociology(社会学) at the Open University, she also argues it is wrong to assume technology erodes(腐蚀，侵蚀) the quality of family life.
“There is the idea that technology has an influence on the family and the family suffers. My take is quite different,” she explains. “Technological change happens because people’s lives change. And it is people’s choices of how to live that creates processes of innovation(革新) as well. The family has a role like the economy or like technology itself in changing the world. The imagination is important in driving the things technologists want to find for our daily lives. People desire to see nature as it is, so color television comes about,” she says.
In another case, the increase in working mothers helped create a market for labor-saving kitchen equipment. “The time that women have to shop every day for food is no longer available so there is a need to have a refrigerator for food storage,” says Dr. Silva. “The need to cook that food more easily and quickly, means you have developments in cooking technology like the microwave oven(微波炉). The microwave oven already existed because it was developed for the navy during World War Two but it wasn’t used in ordinary families until the early 1980s.
“Technologies for housework were as important as those for work itself,” she says, “So washing machines, refrigerators and microwave ovens are terribly important. We couldn’t imagine what life would be like if we didn’t have them.” Technological changes in the kitchen have played an important role in the changes of family behavior, creating a new social focus in the home.
“With advanced technology, you can feed the family in an easier manner. People can do housework with less difficulty. But that doesn’t mean that family practices are not important — it’s just a different way of doing things.”
【小题1】What is Dr. Silva’s attitude towards the effect that technology has on family life?
| A．Worried. | B．Optimistic(乐观的). |
| C．Puzzled. | D．Uncertain. |
| A．People’s love for nature. |
| B．Great changes in people’s way of life. |
| C．People’s desire to change the world. |
| D．The wonderful imagination in inventing things. |
| A．The microwave oven was first used by working mothers. |
| B．People cook less because of modern kitchen equipment. |
| C．Technology has little effect on the changes of family behavior. |
| D．People need less skill to do housework due to advanced technology. |
How to eat healthfully can be especially complex for working women who often have neither the desire nor the time to cook for themselves (or for anyone else )．Registered dietitian Barbara Morrissey suggests that a few simple rules can help.
“Go for nutrient－dense foods，”she suggests，“foods that contain a multiple of nutrients. For example，select whole wheat bread as a breakfast food，rather than coffee cake. Or drink orange juice rather than orange drink，which contains only a small percentage of real juice—the rest is largely colored sugar water. You just can't compare the value of these foods, the nutrient－dense ones are so superior，”she emphasizes.
Morrissey believes that variety is not only the spice of life，it's the foundation of a healthful diet. Diets which are based on one or two foods are not only almost impossible to keep up the strength，they can be very harmful, she says, because nutrients aren't supplied in enough amounts or balance.
According to Morrissey，trying to find a diet that can cure your illnesses，or make you superwoman is a fruitless search.“ As women，many of us are too concerned with staying thin，”she says，and “we believe that vitamins are some kind of magic cure to replace food.”
“We need carbohydrates，protein and fat－they are like the wood in the fireplace. The vitamins and minerals are like the match，the spark，for the fuel，”she explains.“ We need them all，but in a very different proportions（部分）. And if the fuel isn't there，the spark is useless.”
【小题1】From the first paragraph we know that working women________.
| A．think cooking is especially complicated |
| B．do not share the same views with registered dietitians |
| C．are busy and not interested in cooking |
| D．are likely to eat healthfully |
| A．it contains only a small percentage of real juice |
| B．it is natural，nutritious and prepared from real oranges |
| C．it is largely orange－colored sugar water |
| D．it produces nothing but calories |
| A．an effort with no results |
| B．a search for a diet without fruits |
| C．a research on fruitless diet |
| D．a diet serving as medicine |
| A．a balanced diet can result in being fat |
| B．staying thin and healthy are both possible |
| C．lack of variety in diets leads to staying thin |
| D．vitamins are some kind of substitutions（代替物）for food |
| A．carbohydrates，protein and fat are enough to support a human life |
| B．vitamins and minerals are almost of no value |
| C．carbohydrates，protein and fat are as important as vitamins and minerals |
| D．without carbohydrates，protein and fat，vitamins and minerals are of no use |