阅读理解题

　　第一篇

A Thirsty World

　　The world is not only hungry, it is also thirsty for water. This may seem strange to you, since nearly 75% of the earth's surface is covered with water. But about 97% of this huge amount is sea-water, or salt water. Man can only drink and use the other 3% - the fresh water that comes from rivers, lakes, underground, and other sources. And we cannot even use all of that, because some of it is in the form of icebergs (冰山) and glaciers (冰川). Even worse, some of it has been polluted.

　　At the moment, this small .amount of fresh water is still enough for us. However, our need for water is increasing rapidly. Only if we take steps to deal with this problem now can we avoid a severe worldwide water shortage later on. A limited water supply would have a bad effect on agriculture and industry.

　　In addition to stopping wasting our precious water, one useful step we should take is to develop ways of reusing it. Experiments have already been done in this field, but only on a small scale.

　　Today, in most large cities, water is used only once and it eventually returns to the sea or runs into underground storage tanks. But it is possible to pipe water that has been used to a purifying (净化) plant. There it can be filtered (过滤) and treated with chemicals so that it can be used again just as if it were fresh from a spring.

　　But even if every large city purified and reused its water, we still would not have enough. Where could we turn next? To the oceans! All we'd have to do to make use of the vast amount of sea-water is - remove the salt. This salt-removing process is already in use in many parts of the world.

　　So if we take all these steps, we'll be in no danger of drying up!

　　1 The phrase "the world" in the first line of the passage refers to

　　A "man".

　　B "you".

　　C "woman".

　　D "they".

　　2 What percentage of the earth's water can man actually use at present？

　　A Nearly 75 per cent.

　　B About 97 per cent.

　　C Exactly 3 per cent.

　　D Less than 3 percent.

　　3 According to the passage， we can avoid a worldwide water shortage in the future by

　　A increasing rainfall.

　　B reusing water and utilizing sea-water.

　　C cutting down our consumption of water.

　　D reducing the number of factories producing steel.

　　4 Which of the following statements， according to the passage， is NOT true？

　　A A limited water supply will affect industrial production.

　　B Every large city purifies and reuses its water.

　　C Purified water is not exactly as fresh as spring water.

　　D Oceans are the largest water source.

　　5 According to the passage， sea-water can be turned into fresh water by

　　A heating it up.

　　B treating it with chemicals.

　　C taking salt out of it.

　　D drying it up.

　　第二篇

　　Nonverbal Thinking in Engineering

　　Many objects in daily use have clearly been influenced by science. However, their form and function, their dimensions and appearance, were determined by technologists, designers, inventors, and engineers using nonscientific modes of thought. Many features and qualities of the objects that a technologist thinks about cannot be reduced to clear verbal descriptions; they are dealt with in the mind by a visual, nonverbal process. Pyramids, cathedrals, and rockets exist not because of geometry or thermo-dynamics (热动力学), but because they were first the picture in the minds of those who built them.'

　　The creative shaping process of a technologist's mind can be seen in nearly every artifact (人工制品) that exists. For example, in designing a diesel engine, a technologist might express individual (个人的) ways of nonverbal thinking on the machine by continually using an intuitive (直觉的) sense of rightness and fitness. What would be the shape of the combustion chamber (燃烧室)？ Where should the valves (阀) be placed? Such questions have a range of answers that are supplied by experience, by physical requirement, by limitations of available space, and not in the least by a sense of form. Some decisions, such as wall thickness and pin diameter, may depend on scientific calculations, but the nonscientific component design remains primary.

　　Design courses, then, should be an essential element of engineering curricula. Nonverbal thinking, a central mechanism in engineering design, involves perceptions, which is the special technique of the artist, not the scientist. Because perceptive processes are not assumed to need "hard thinking", nonverbal thought is sometimes seen as a primitive stage in the development of cognitive processes and inferior to verbal mathematical thought.

　　If courses in design, which in a strongly analytical (分析的) engineering curriculum provide the background required for practical problem-solving, are not provided, we can expect to encounter silly but costly errors occurring in advanced engineering systems. For example, early modes of high-speed railroad cars loaded with high-tech controls were unable to operate in a snowstorm because the fan sucked snow into the electrical system. Random failures that bring automatic control systems into trouble are a reflection of the chaos that results when design is assumed to be primarily a problem in mathematics.

　　6 The passage is mainly concerned with

　　A the modes of thinking that are used by technologists.

　　B the importance of nonverbal thinking in engineering design.

　　C the new role for nonscientific thinking in engineering.

　　D the difference between the goals of engineers and those of technologists

　　7 Which of the following is NOT mentioned as an example involving nonverbal thinking in paragraphs 1 and 2？

　　A Building cathedrals.

　　B Creating rockets.

　　C Designing diesel engines.

　　D Making boats.

　　8 The example of the diesel engine is used in the passage to illustrate that

　　A errors in engineering design are unavoidable.

　　B the nonscientific component design is primary.

　　C mathematics is a necessary part of the study of design.

　　D design courses form a part of engineering curricula.

　　9 It can be inferred that the writer thinks that engineering curricula are

　　A strengthened when they include courses in design.

　　B weakened by the courses designed to develop mathematical skills

　　C weak because they include some nonscientific components.

　　D strong despite the absence of nonscientific modes of thinking.

　　10 What contributes to random failures in automatic control systems？

　　A Using too many inexperienced engineers in the field.

　　B Attaching too much importance to nonverbal thinking in engineering

　　C Relying too heavily on the role of mathematics in design.

　　D Depending very little on verbal mathematical thought.

　　第三篇

　　Black Holes

　　What is a black hole? Well, it's difficult to answer this question, since the terms we normally use to describe a scientific phenomenon are inadequate here. Astronomers and scientists think that a black hole is a region of space (not a thing) into which matter has fallen and from which nothing can escape -- not even light. So we can't see a black hole. A black hole exerts (施加的) a strong gravitational (重力的) pull and yet it has no matter. It is only space -- or so we think. How can this happen?

　　The theory is that some stars explode when their density increases to a particular point; they "collapse" and sometimes a supernova (超新星) occurs. The collapse of a star may produce a "White Dwarf (白矮星)" or a "neutron star" -- a star whose matter is so dense that it continually shrinks by the force of its own gravity. But if the star is very large this process of shrinking may be so intense that a black hole results. Imagine the earth reduced to the size of a marble, but still having the same mass and a stronger gravitational pull, and you have some idea of the force of a black hole. Any matter near the black hole is sucked in. It is impossible to say what happens inside a black hole.

　　Our space and time laws don't seem to apply to objects in the area of a black hole. Einstein's relativity theory is the only one that can explain such phenomena. Einstein claimed that matter and energy are interchangeable, so that there is no "absolute" time and space. There are no constants at all, and measurements of time and space depend on the position of the observer -- they are relative. Einstein's theory provided a basis for the idea of black holes before astronomers started to find some evidence for their existence. It is only recently that astronomers have begun specific research into black holes.

　　The most convincing evidence of black holes comes from research into binary (有两部分组成) star systems. In some binary star systems, astronomers have shown that there is an invisible companion star, a "partner" to the one which we can see in the sky. There is one star, called by its catalogue number HDE 226868, which must have a partner. This partner star, it seems, has a mass ten or twenty times greater than the sun——yet we can't see it. Matter from HDE 226868 is being dragged towards this companion star. Could this invisible star, which exerts such a great force, be a black hole? Astronomers have evidence of a few other stars too, which might have black holes as companions.

　　11 Which of the following does NOT fit the definition of the black hole？

　　A The black hole is a region of space.

　　B The black hole sucks in any object that passes by it.

　　C The black hole is visible through an infrared telescope.

　　D The black hole has no matter.

　　12 Why does the author put "neutron star" in quotation marks？

　　A It is a special term of astronomy.

　　B It is an invented term.

　　C He is quoting an authority.

　　D He is using the term ironically.

　　13 What leads to the formation of a black hole？

　　A The structure of a star.

　　B A collision between two stars.

　　C The attraction of two large stars.

　　D The shrinking of a large star by its own gravitational force.

　　14 According to Einstein's theory, objects in the area of a black hole

　　A are gathered in its center.

　　B strike against one another frequently.

　　C do not have absolute space.

　　D are relatively brighter.

　　15 We learn from this passage that

　　A the sun is the heaviest star in the universe.

　　B a star in the sky might have an invisible partner.

　　C two black holes are dragged towards each other.

　　D the mass of a star is equal to that of its companion.

　　【参考答案】

　　1.A   2. D   3. B   4.B   5. C

　　6. B   7. D   8.B    9. A   10. C

　　11. C  12. A  13. D   14. C  15. B