Awomanandamanwereinvolvedinaca-优题课

B
It is natural that children are curious about the world around them. For example, they want to know how their hearts beat. They want to know why the ocean water tastes salty.
　　As children grow up, they become curious about different kinds of things. When they are babies, they are interested in the parts of their bodies and in the smiles of their mothers. They become interested in the physical world around them: the plants, the animals, the sky. Later, they become interested in the things that people have made: wheels, bicycles, cars. And when they are adults, their curiosity continues. Sometimes this curiosity leads to a career (生涯、职业) in science.
　　Scientists spend their lives trying to find out about the world．Those who work with the earth sciences study the earth, the oceans, and the skies. Other scientists who study living things work with the biological sciences. A third group of scientists study the physical sciences, e. g. physics, chemistry .
　　These scientists have already discovered a lot about our world．For example, they tell us why your heart beats fast when you run. They say that when you are quiet, your heart normally beats sixty-five or seventy-five times a minute. Your heart is a pump (泵) that pumps blood to all parts of the body. The blood carries oxygen and nutrition. When you run, your muscles work very hard and use the nutrition that the blood carries to them. The muscles need oxygen, too . So your brain sends a signal to the heart. The signal means that the muscles need more nutrition and oxygen. Then the heart beats fast and sends blood quickly to the muscles. It may beat 90 to 140 times a minute.
　　Of course, scientists cannot answer all of our questions. If we ask, “Why does the ocean water taste salty” scientists will say that the salt comes from rocks. When a rock gets very hot or very cold, it cracks. Rain falls into cracks. The rain then carries the salt into the earth and into the rivers. The rivers carry the salt into the ocean. But then we ask , “What happens to the salt in the ocean? The ocean does not get saltier every year.” Scientists are not sure about the answer to this question.
　　We know a lot about our world, but there are still many answers that we do not have, and we are curious.
45．According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
　 A．People are curious in the same way.
　 B．People in different countries are interested in different things.
　 C．Men and women are curious about different things.
　 D．People of different ages are interested in different things
46．Scientists who work with the biological sciences study____.
A．the earth , the oceans and the sky B．man-made things
C．plants and animals D．ocean water
47．When you run, your muscles need ____.
A．more nutrition and oxygen B．more signals C．more salt D．water
48．A rock cracks _____.
A．in wet regions B．in dry regions
C．at very high or very low temperatures D．when salty water falls in

第三部分阅读理解（共两节，满分50分）
第一节：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，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
A
People have strange ideas about food. For example, tomato is a kind of very delicious vegetable. It is one of useful plants that can be prepared in many ways. It has rich nutrition(营养) and vitamin in it. But in the 18th century, Americans never ate tomatoes. They grew them in their gardens because tomato plants are so pretty. But they thought the vegetable was poisonous(有毒的). They called tomatoes “poison apples”.
President Thomas Jefferson, however, know that tomatoes were good to eat. He was a learned man. He had been to Paris, where he learned to love the taste of tomatoes. He grew many kinds of tomatoes in his garden. The President taught his cook a way for a cream of tomato soup. This beautiful pink soup was served at the President party. The guests thought the soup tasted really good. They never thought their president would serve his honored guests poison apples. Jefferson never spoke to his honored guests about the fact.
41．After you read the passage, which of the following do you think is true?
A. Americans never ate tomatoes after they began to plant them.
B. Americans didn’t eat tomatoes before 19th century.
C. Even now Americans don’t eat tomatoes.
D. In the 18th century Americans ate a lot of tomatoes.
42．Jefferson learned that tomatoes were good to eat ____.
A. while he was in Paris B. when he was a little boy
C. because his parents told him so D. from books
43．From the passage we know all the honored guests invited by Jefferson were____.
A. people from other countries B. from France
C. people of his own country D. men only
44．According to the passage, which of the following is NOT TRUE?
A. Some of the guests knew the soup that was served at the President’s party was made of tomatoes
B. All of the guests thought the soup which was prepared by the President’s cook was nice.
C. President Thomas Jefferson knew that tomatoes were good to eat and not poisonous at all.
D. All of the guests didn’t know that their president would serve his honored guests poison apples.

E
A century ago in the United States, when an individual brought suit against a company, public opinion tended to protect that company. But perhaps this phenomenon was most striking in the case of the railroads. Nearly half of all negligence cases decided through 1896 involved railroads. And the railroads usually won.
Most of the cases were decided in sate courts, when the railroads had the climate of the times on their sides. Government supported the railroad industry; the progress railroads represented was not to be slowed down by requiring them often to pay damages to those unlucky enough to be hurt working for them.
Court decisions always went against railroad workers. A Mr. Farwell, an engineer, lost his right hand when a switchman’s negligence ran his engine off the track. The court reasoned that since Farwell had taken the job of an engineer voluntarily at good pay, he had accepted the risk. Therefore the accident, though avoidable had the switchmen acted carefully, was a “pure accident”. In effect a railroad could never be held responsible for injury to one employee caused by the mistake of another.
In one case where a Pennsylvania Railroad worker had started a fire at a warehouse and the fire had spread several blocks, causing widespread damage, a jury found the company responsible for all the damage. But the court overturned the jury’s decision because it argued that the railroad’s negligence was the immediate cause of damage only to the nearest buildings. Beyond them the connection was too remote to consider.
As the century wore on, public sentiment began to turn against the railroads—against their economic and political power and high fares as well as against their callousness toward individuals.
72. Which of the following is NOT true in Farwell’s case?
A. Farwell was injured because he negligently ran his engine off the track.
B. Farwell would not have been injured if the switchman had been more careful.
C. The court argued that the victim had accepted the risk since he had willingly taken his job.
D. The court decided that the railroad should not be held responsible.
73. What must have happened after the fire case was settled in court?
A. The railroad compensated for the damage to the immediate buildings.
B. The railroad compensated for all the damage by the fire.
C. The railroad paid nothing for the damaged building.
D. The railroad worker paid for the property damage himself.
74. The following aroused public resentment EXCEPT _____.
A. political power B. high fares C. economic loss D. indifference
75. What does the passage mainly discuss?
A. Railroad oppressing individuals in the US.
B. History of the US railroads.
C. Railroad workers’ working rights.
D. Law cases concerning the railroads.

D
What's your earliest childhood memory? Can you remember the first time you heard thunder or watched a television program? Adults seldom recall events much earlier than the year or so before entering school, just as children younger than three or four rarely retain any memory of specific, personal experiences.
A variety of explanations have been proposed by psychologists for this "childhood amnesia"( 记忆缺失,健忘).One argues that the hippocampus, the region of the brain which is responsible for forming memories, does not mature（成熟）until about the age of two. But the most popular theory maintains (主张）that, since adults do not think like children, they cannot access childhood memories. Adults think in words, and their life memories are like stories. But when they search through their mental files for early childhood memories to add to this verbal life story, they don't find any that fit the pattern. It's like trying to find a Chinese word in an English dictionary.
Now psychologist Annette Simms offers a new explanation for childhood amnesia. She argues that there simply aren't any early childhood memories to recall. According to Dr. Simms, children need to learn to use someone else's spoken description of their personal experiences in order to turn their own short-term, quickly forgotten impressions of these experiences into long-term memories. In other words, children have to talk about their experiences and hear others talk about them - Mother talking about the afternoon spent looking for crabs(蟹) at the beach or Dad asking them about their day at Ocean Park. Without this verbal reinforcement, says Dr. Simms, children cannot form permanent memories of their personal experiences.
69. According to the passage, it is widely believed that_________.
A. it is impossible for an adult to recall his(or her) childhood experiences
B. adults virtually have no access to their childhood memories
C. adults think in words while children think in images
D. adults and children have different brain structures
70. "Trying to find a Chinese word in an English dictionary" is stated in the passage to show that_______.
A. Chinese and English are totally different languages
B. it is unlikely to find a Chinese word in an English dictionary
C. adults and children have different memory patterns
D. memories are in some way connected with languages
71. According to Annette Simms,_______________.
A. verbal reinforcement is necessary for children to have permanent memories
B. there does not exist such things as childhood memories
C. children's brains are mature enough to form permanent memories
D. children are generally inexperienced and unable to remember things they don't understand

C
Let These Plants Swat the Bugs for You
Some plants get so hungry they eat flies, spiders, and even small frogs. What’s more amazing is that these plants occur naturally (in special environments) in every state. In fact, they’re found on every continent except Antarctica.
You’ve probably seen a Venus’ flytrap. It’s often sold in museum gift stores, department stores, and even supermarkets. A small plant, it grows 6 to 8 inches tall in a container. At the end of its stalks（茎）are specially modified leaves that act like traps. Inside each trap is a lining of tiny trigger（触发）hairs. When an insect lands on them, the trap suddenly shut. Over the course of a week or so, the plant feeds on its catch.
The Venus’ flytrap is just one of more than 500 species of meat-eating plants, says Barry Meyers-Rice, the editor of the International Carnivorous Plant Society’s Newsletter. Note: Despite any science-fiction stories（科幻小说）you might have read, no meat-eating plant does any danger to humans.
Dr. Meyers-Rice says a plant is meat-eating, only if it does all four of the following: “attract, kill, digest, and absorb” some form of insects , including flies, butterflies, and moths. Meat-eating plants look and act like other green plants—well, most of the time.
All green plants make sugar through a process called photosynthesis（光合作用）. Plants use the sugar to make food. What makes “meat-eating” plants different is their bug-catching leaves. They need insects for one reason: nitrogen（氮）. Nitrogen is a nutrient that they can’t obtain any other way. Why?
Almost all green plants on our planet get nitrogen from the soil. “Meat-eating” plants can’t. They live in places where nutrients are hard or almost impossible to get from the soil because of its acidity（酸度）. So they’ve come to rely on getting nitrogen from insects and small animals. In fact, nutrient-rich soil is poisonous to “meat-eating” plants. Never fertilize（施肥）them! But don’t worry, either, if they never seem to catch any insects. They can survive, but they’ll grow very slowly.
64. Venus flytrap
A. is a small plant which grows in a container.
B. is a kind of plant which gets hungry easily.
C. can attract, kill, digest and absorb some form of insects.
D. grows 6-8 inches tall
65. From the passage, we know .
A. “meat-eating” plants are found on every continent.
B. all green plants get nitrogen from the soil.
C. bug-catching leaves make “meat-eating” different from other plants.
D. some “meat-eating” plants in the rainforest do danger to humans.
66. “Meat-eating” plants grow very slowly, .
A. so you’d better fertilize them
B. probably because the source of nitrogen is cut off.
C. simply because they can’t absorb nitrogen from the soil
D. and then they will die slowly.
67. Which of the following is true?
A. “Meat-eating” plants look and act like other green plants.
B. No insects, no “meat-eating” plants.
C. The reason why Venus flytrap needs flies is that it needs to get nutrient from them.
D. Green plants make sugar at night.
68. What does the underlined word nutrient in paragraph 5 probably mean?
A. 化学物 B.营养物 C. 肥料 D. 氮氢化合物