第三部分：阅读理解（共15小题，每小题2分，满分30分）.
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
IN a surprising discovery about where higher life can survive, scientists have found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish (水母) swimming beneath an Antarctic ice sheet.
About 180 meters below the ice where no light can get through, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes (微生物) could exist.
That’s why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly (下腹部) of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera’s cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle (触须) they believe came from a jellyfish.
“We were operating on the presumption (假定) that nothing’s there,” said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler. “It was a shrimp you’d enjoy having on your plate.”
“We were just gaga (狂热的) over it,” he said of the 7.5cm long, orange creature starring in their two-minute video. Technically, it’s not a shrimp. It’s a Lyssianasid amphipod (片脚类动物), which is distantly related to the shrimp.
The video is likely to inspire experts to rethink what they know about life in harsh (苛刻的) environments. And it has scientists thinking that if shrimp-like creatures can live below 180 meters of Antarctic ice in freezing dark water, what about other cold places? What about Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter?
Cynan Ellis-Evans, a scientist of the British Antarctic Survey called the finding intriguing (吸引人的). He said it was possible the creatures swam in from far away and don’t live there permanently.
But Kim, who is a co-author of the study, doubts it. The site in West Antarctica is at least 19 km from open seas. Bindschadler drilled a 20cm-wide hole and was looking at a tiny amount of water. That means it’s unlikely that two creatures swam from great distances and were captured randomly in that small of an area, she said.
Yet scientists were puzzled at what the food source would be for these creatures. While some microbes can make their own food out of chemicals in the ocean, complex life like the shrimp can’t, Kim said.
So how do they survive? That’s the key question, Kim said.
“It’s pretty amazing when you find a huge puzzle like that on a planet where we thought we know everything,” Kim said.
56. Scientists had believed that harsh environments could only have been populated by ______.
A. jellyfish      B. mammal    C. microbes      D. shrimp-like creature
57. According to Kim, the shrimp-like creature ______.
A. swam great distances to Antarctic                 B. has always lived in the region
C. gradually evolved from shrimp                   D. has nothing in common with shrimp
58. The finding is significant in that ______.
A. it marks NASA’s first Antarctic biological study
B. it proves there is marine life in the Antarctic
C. it could inspire further study of life in harsh environment
D. it shows that Lyssianasid amphipod is closely related to shrimp
59. The last three paragraphs suggest that ______.
A. researchers will look at the places the creatures came from
B. ice scientists will drill deeper to find more creature
C. scientists know very little about the planet they live on
D. further research will be done about what the creatures live on

科目 英语   题型 阅读理解   难度 中等

知识点： 短文理解