On August 5 at 10:31 p.m. PST, a rover（探测器）named Curiosity touched down safely on the surface of Mars, and I was lucky enough to have a front-row seat.
My name is Clara, and when I was in Grade 6, I won the essay contest NASA held to name its next Mars rover. The essay I wrote was not even 250 words long, but somehow it was enough to change my life.
I still remember that cold December day, sitting in a science class. I’d finished a worksheet early and decided to get a Time for Kids magazine off Mrs. Estevez’s bookshelf. It was the 2008 Invention Issue, but that wasn’t the only thing that caught my eye. In the magazine, there was an article about a girl who named the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The article also talked about the essay contest NASA was holding to name its next Mars rover. Before I even knew anything else about it, a single word flooded my 11-year-old mind: Curiosity.
I couldn’t wait for the bell to ring so I could get started on my essay. That afternoon, I raced home from the bus stop, sat down at the computer and typed until my fingers ached. It turned out that I was just in time. A few days later, and the contest would have closed.
Five months later, shortly after I had turned 12, I was watching a National Geographic special on mammoths when the phone rang. My mom answered, and immediately, a wide smile spread across her face. When she told me that I had won, I was happier than I could ever remember being, I screamed and ran up and down the stairs and all around the house. I completely forgot about the mammoths and did not even remember to turn off the TV until it was really late.
Curiosity is such an important part of who I am. I have always been fascinated by the stars, the planets, the sky and the universe. I remember as a little girl, my grandfather and I would sit together in the backyard for hours. He’d tell me stories and point out the stars.
My grandfather lived in China, thousands of miles away from my home in Kansas. I loved the stars because they kept us together even when we were apart. They were always there, yet there was so much I didn’t know about them. That’s what I love so much about space. No matter how much we learn, it will always possess some mystery.
In the past, space exploration may have been a competition to see who got somewhere first or the fastest. But now, it is one of the few things that bring people together. Science is a language that needs no translation. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you look like – you just have to have a thirst for knowledge and a passion for learning in order to succeed.
People often ask me why we go to faraway places like Mars. Why do we explore? My answer to that is simple: because we can; because we’re curious; because we as human beings do not just stay holed up in one place. We are constantly wondering and trying to find out what’s over the hill and beyond the horizon.
The curiosity rover is more than just a robot. It is more than just a titanium body and aluminum wheels. Curiosity represents the hard work, passion, love and commitment of thousands of people from all over the world who were brought together by science. Science is so awesome. It is breathtaking and mind-blowing; and sometimes, it’s just a little bit crazy. The discoveries we make about our world are incredibly humbling. They move us forward and have the potential to benefit all of mankind.
This December it will be four years of my life that have been tied to Curiosity in some way. I’ve met so many amazing people through this experience, from scientists to engineers to administrators to volunteers. Their devotion and enthusiasm inspire me greatly. My journey with Curiosity and the MSL mission team has shaped the person that I am today, as well as the person I would one day like to become.
I am deeply grateful to everyone who made it possible for me to have this amazing adventure.
And to you, I hope your curiosity takes you far. The method the writer uses to begin the passage is _____.
| A．telling a story | B．giving an example |
| C．offering an explanation | D．describing a scene |
Why did the writer hurry home to finish the essay for the contest NASA held?
| A．She had just gathered enough information from Time for Kids |
| B．She wanted to write down what flashed through her mind in time. |
| C．She knew from Mrs. Estevez the deadline for the contest was approaching. |
| D．She was afraid she might miss the chance to compete with the former winner. |
The writer mentions her grandfather in order to show that ______.
| A．she missed him very much. |
| B．he knew a great deal about space |
| C．he influenced her to love the stars |
| D．she treasured their happy moments |
Which of the following serves as a summary of Paragraph 11?
| A．The writer was inspired to be a volunteer by the people she met. |
| B．The writer owed her success to her team members’ encouragement. |
| C．The writer met many difficulties in her four-year life with Curiosity. |
| D．The writer has benefited a lot from her experience tied to Curiosity. |
Which best describes the writer’s tone in the passage?
| A．Sharp. | B．Proud. | C．Aggressive. | D．Enthusiastic. |
What is conveyed in the passage?
| A．Curiosity is important to human beings. |
| B．A thirst for knowledge helps one grow up. |
| C．Entering a contest is a way to achieve success. |
| D．Curiosity changes people’s attitude towards science. |
Bicycles, roller skates and skateboards are dangerous. I still have scars (伤疤) on my knees from my childhood run-ins with various wheeled devices. Admittedly, I was a foolish kid, but I’m glad I didn’t spend my childhood trapped indoors to protect me from any injury.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” But parents can’t handle it when teenagers put this theory into practice. And now technology has become the new field for the age-old battle between adults and their freedom-seeking kids.
Locked indoors, unable to get on their bicycles and hang out with their friends, teens have turned to social media and their mobile phones to gossip and socialize with their friends. What they do online often mirrors what they might otherwise do if their mobility weren’t so heavily restricted (限制) in the age of helicopter parenting. Social media and smartphones have become so popular in recent years because teens need a place to call their own. They want the freedom to explore their identity and the world around them. Instead of climbing out of windows, they jump online.
As teens have moved online, parents have projected their fears onto the Internet, imagining all the potential dangers that youth might face.
Rather than helping teens develop strategies (策略) to deal with public life and the potential risks of interacting with others, fearful parents have focused on tracking, monitoring and blocking. These approaches don’t help teens develop the skills they need to manage complex social situations. “Protecting” kids may feel like the right thing to do, but it denies teens the chances of learning as they come of age in a technology-soaked world.
The key to helping youth in the modern digital life isn’t more restrictions. It’s freedom — plus communication. Urban theorist Jane Jacobs used to argue that the safest neighborhoods were those where communities collectively took interest in and paid attention to what happened on the streets. Safety didn’t come from surveillance (监视) cameras or keeping everyone indoors but from a collective willingness to watch out for one another and be present as people struggled. The same is true online.
What makes the digital street safe is when teens and adults collectively agree to open their eyes and pay attention, communicate and work together to deal with difficult situations. Teens need the freedom to wander the digital street, but they also need to know that caring adults are behind them and supporting them wherever they go. The first step is to turn off the tracking software. Then ask your kids what they’re doing when they’re online — and why it’s so important to them.When he was a child, the writer ______.
| A．became disabled |
| B．spent much time outdoor |
| C．always stayed at home |
| D．was ignored by his parents |
Teens go online mainly because ______.
| A．online games mirror real life |
| B．they want to fight against their parents |
| C．online experiences make them strong |
| D．they need a space of their own |
By mentioning “helicopter parenting” (Paragraph 3), the writer means parents ______.
| A．remove any hidden dangers their kids may face |
| B．use helicopters to track their kids |
| C．prevent their kids from going to school |
| D．protect their kids too much |
According to the passage, helicopter parents may make kids ______.
| A．lose the chances of learning |
| B．handle complex social situations well |
| C．adapt to the digital world quickly |
| D．develop strategies to deal with public life |
The main idea of the passage is that ______.
| A．kids should be given freedom to deal with online risks |
| B．safe neighborhoods come from joint efforts of all |
| C．the digital street is a threat to kids’ safety |
| D．kids should be warned against potential dangers in society |
When Jeff Sparkman draws his cartoon superheroes with colored pencils, he often has to ask other people to tell him what color his masked men turned out to be because he's color-blind. Now, a new smart phone application (app) can help him figure out what colors he's using and how the picture looks to most everyone else.
The DanKam app, available for iPhone and Android for $2.99, is an application that turns the vague colors that one percent of the population with color-blindness sees into the "true" colors as everyone else sees them. In America, an estimated 32 million color-blind Americans—95% are males—can soon have their life improved.
“DanKam takes the stream of data coming in through the phone's camera and changes the colors slightly so they fall within the range that people who are color-blind see,”developer Dan Kaminsky told CNET. He came up with the idea after watching the 2009 film Star Trek with a color-blind friend.
It was then that he got to know more about colorblindness like its varying types and degrees. A vast majority, for instance, have trouble seeing red or green due to a genetic defect(遗传缺陷). Blue-yellow colorblindness, however, is rarer and develops later in life because of aging, illness or head injuries, etc. He started experimenting with one of the most common representations of points in the RGB color model. What the DanKam app attempts to do is to clean up the color space of the image or video signal so that colors can be visible to those suffering from viewing problems. “You can adjust the app to fit your needs. There is a range and not everyone who is color-blind sees things the same.” Says Kaminsky.
Sparkman, a copy editor at CNET, tried out the app and was pleased with the results. "It would be useful for dressing for a job interview," he said. But using it for his art is “the most practical application." It worked well on LED and other lights on electronic gadgets, which means Sparkman can now identify the power light on his computer display as green.According to the first two paragraphs, we can know that DanKam ___________.
| A．is designed to help people with colorblindness |
| B．can turn vague colors into real ones |
| C．is a phone used to help drawing pictures |
| D．appeared in the movie Star Trek |
How does DanKam’s app work?
| A．It puts LED and other lights on electronic gadgets. |
| B．It shows common representations of points in the RGB color model |
| C．It checks color-blind people’s types of degrees of colorblindness. |
| D．It changes the colors so that color-blind people can see them. |
It can be inferred from the passage that colorblindness __________.
| A．cannot be cured by any methods |
| B．is not necessarily inborn disease |
| C．is more commonly seen in women |
| D．makes people unable to tell any colors |
The underlined word visible in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to _________.
| A．recognizable | B．enjoyable |
| C．adjustable | D．Portable |
Which of the following is NOT included in the things that DanKam helps Sparkman with?
| A．Choosing clothes. |
| B．Playing computer games |
| C．Drawing his pictures. |
| D．Handling electronic gadgets. |
Regarded as one of the English language's most gifted poets, John Keats wrote poetry that concentrated on imagery, human nature, and philosophy. Although Keats didn't receive much formal literary education, his own studies and passion brought him much success. Additionally, his own life situation influenced his poetry greatly.
Growing up as a young boy in London in a lower, middle-class family, the young John didn't attend a private school, but went to a public one. His teachers and his family's friends regarded him as an optimistic boy who favored playing and fighting much more than minding his studies. After his father's death in the early 1800s, followed by his mother's passing due to tuberculosis (肺结核), he began viewing life differently. He wanted to escape the world and did so by reading anything he could get his hands on.
At around the age of 16, the teenage John Keats began studying under a surgeon so that he too might become a doctor. However, his literary appetite had taken too much of his fancy, especially with his addiction to the poetry of Ehmund Spenser. He was able to have his first full poem published in the Examiner in 1816, entitled O Solitude! If I Must With Thee Dwell. Within two months in 1817, Keats had written an entire volume of poetry, but was sharply criticized by a magazine. However, the negative response didn't stop his pursuit of rhythm.
John Keats' next work was Endymion, which was published in May 1818. The story involves a shepherd who falls in love with the moon goddess and leads him on an adventure of one boy's hope to overcome the limitations of being human. Following Engymion, however, he tried something more narrative-based and wrote Isabella. During this time, John Keats began seeing his limitations in poetry due to his own limit in life experiences. He would have to have the "knowledge" associated with his poems. His next work was Hyperion that would attempt to combine all that he learned. However, a bout (发作) with tuberculosis while visiting Italy would keep him from his work and eventually take his life in 1821.John Keats' attitude towards life changed because of________.
| A．his early education from school |
| B．the criticism of a magazine |
| C．Edmund Spenser's poetry |
| D．the deaths of his parents |
What is the common thing between John Keats and his mother?
| A．They read many books. |
| B．They died of the same disease. |
| C．They had a bad childhood. |
| D．They showed strong interest in poetry. |
What do we know from the passage?
| A．Keats once had a chance of becoming a doctor. |
| B．Keats received little education at school. |
| C．In 1816 Keats spent two months writing a poem. |
| D．Endymion was about a real love story. |
While pursuing his dream of becoming a poet at first, John Keats was________.
| A．knowledgeable | B．experienced |
| C．determined | D．impatient |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．The poem Hyperion wasn't completed by Keats. |
| B．Edmund Spenser was the greatest poet in Keats' time. |
| C．It is likely that Keats rewrote his poem Isabella. |
| D．Keats' family must have been very poor when he was young. |
Before we start a voyage, we usually try to find out more or less definitely where we are bound and how we are supposed to get there.
I happen to have the “Concise Oxford dictionary” on my desk and that will do as well as any other. The word I am looking for appears at the bottom of Page 344. edition 1912.
“Geography: the science of the earth's surface, form, physical features, natural and political divisions, climate, productions and population.”
I could not possibly hope to do better, but I still stress some of the aspects of the case at the expenses of others, because I intend to place man in the centre of the stage. This book of mine will not merely discuss the surface of the earth and its physical features, together with its political and natural boundaries. I would rather call it a study of man in search of food and shelter and leisure for himself and for his family and an attempt to his background or has reshaped his physical surroundings in order to be comfortable and well nourished and happy with his limited strength.
Among the two million human beings in the world, there is of course the widest possible range for all sorts of experiments of an economic and social and cultural nature. It seems me that those experiments deserve our attention before anything else. For a mountain is after all merely a mountain until it has been seen by human eyes and has been walked on by human feet and until its and slopes and valleys have been occupied and fought over and planted by a dozen generation of hungry settlers.
The Atlantic Ocean was just as wide and deep and as wet and salty before the beginning of the 13th century as after, but it took the human touch to make it what it is today—a bridge between the New World and the Old, the highway for the commerce between East and West.
For thousands of years the endless Russian plains lay ready to offer their abundant harvest to whoever should take the trouble to sow the first grain. But the aspect of that country today would he a very different one if the hand of a German or a Frank, rather than that of a Slav, had guided the iron-pointed stick that plowed the first furrows (犁沟).
The island of Nippon would shake and quake just as continually, whether they happened to be settled by Japanese or by the Tasmanian race, but in the latter case they would hardly be able to feed 60,000,000 people.
Generally speaking, I have paid more attention to the purely “human” side of geography than to the commercial problems which are so important in a day and age devoted to mass production.In the first four paragraphs, the author wants to share with the readers ______.
| A．his approach to planning a voyage |
| B．his emphasis on using a dictionary |
| C．his definition of the word “geography” |
| D．his altitude to the earth's physical features |
Which of the following will the author NOT consider to be on experiment according to Paragraph 5?
| A．Exploring a mountain. |
| B．Climbing a mountain. |
| C．Planting on slopes and valleys. |
| D．Becoming hungry. |
Which of the following is implied about the Atlantic Ocean?
| A．It is wide, deep, wet and salty. |
| B．Human touch makes it important. |
| C．There is a bridge over it. |
| D．The highway is busy there. |
The author mentioned the Russian plains and the island of Nippon to show that _____.
| A．they both feed a lot of people |
| B．they enjoy very good natural conditions |
| C．different people may make the same place different |
| D．their natural conditions haven't changed for many years |
“The really big concern over the last decade,” according to Dr. David Whitehead, “is the relative loss of opportunities for children to engage in child-led play.” That's true. One of the exhausting aspects of modern parenting is that everything, even doing nothing, has to be purposeful. Now that “parenting” has become a verb — a state of doing, rather than simply being — it can fed unnatural to leave your children to their own devices. Yet it creates spaces in which good things can happen. The psychology lecturer is responding to a survey showing that 80 percent of parents of small children feel under pressure to fill their days with “structured” activities. This, says Dr. Whitehead, is a mistake. Leaving your children to play on their own or with their peers enables them to develop “self-regulation abilities”, which in turn leads to better academic achievement.
One afternoon last autumn, sitting on a bench doing no parenting at all, I suddenly felt I was getting the hang of it.
That afternoon, my sister and I took our children to the park. We had lots to talk about, so we sat down on a bench and drove the children away. After briefly complaining, the cousins wandered off and started jumping into puddles (水洼).
They jumped and jumped, and then one of them kicked some muddy water at the others. My sister and I, deep in conversation, didn't notice this. So my nephew became more adventurous. He scooped up a handful of mud and threw it on my son's head. My son caught his breath happily, wiped the mud out of his eyes, and threw one back. My nephew, who has a talent for naming things, puffed out his tiny chest and roared: “Let's play Muddikins!”
The rules of Muddikins are simple. You run around throwing mud at each other until everyone is so thickly coated that you can no longer be sure which child is whose. Nothing is learnt from it; nobody is improved. It is pure fun, of the sort that can only happen when parents drop the reins (缰绳). They did it. “ Whoa, that's so cool,” said one. “I wish my mum was like you.”What is stressed in Paragraph 1?
| A．Child-led play matters in the development of children. |
| B．Parents' concern over their children is unnecessary. |
| C．Children's activities should be well organized. |
| D．Parenting is everything in a family. |
What does the author think of the behavior of the children in the puddles?
| A．Amazing. | B．Troublesome. |
| C．Adventurous. | D．Worthwhile. |
By saying “They did it” in the last paragraph, the author means that ______.
| A．The reins were dropped. |
| B．She failed to distinguish her child. |
| C．The children learned from the Muddikins. |
| D．She confirmed Dr. David Whitehead's theory. |
The text is mainly about the relationship between _____.
| A．parents and children |
| B．individual and group |
| C．play and acquisition |
| D．theory and practice |