单选题 The unknown pervades the universe. That which people can see, with the aid of various sorts of telescope, accounts for just 4% of the total mass. The rest, however, must exist. Without it, galaxies would not survive and the universe would not be gently expanding, as witnessed by astronomers. What exactly constitutes this dark matter and dark energy remains mysterious, but physicists have recently uncovered some more clues, about the former, at least.
One possible explanation for dark matter is a group of subatomic particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos are thought to be the most abundant particles in the universe. According to the Standard Model, the most successful description of particle physics to date, neutrinos come in three varieties, called "flavors". Again, according to the Standard Model, they are point-like, electrically neutral and massless. But in recent years, this view has been challenged, as physicists realized that neutrinos might have mass.
The first strong evidence came in 1998, when researchers at an experiment, based in Japan, showed that muon neutrinos produced by cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere had gone missing by the time they should have reached an underground detector. Its operators suspect that the missing muon neutrinos had changed flavor, becoming electron neutrinos or-more likely-tau neutrinos. Theo- ry suggests that this process, called oscillation, can happen only if neutrinos have mass.
Over the coming months and years, researchers hope to produce the most accurate measurements yet. The researchers created a beam of muon neutrinos first. On the other side of the target sat a particle detector that monitored the number of muon neutrinos leaving. The neutrinos then travelled 750km (450 miles) through the Earth to a detector in a former iron mine in Soudan, Minnesota. Researchers then were able to confirm that a significant number of muon neutrinos had disappeared-that is, they had changed flavor. While their mass is so small that neutrinos cannot be the sole constituent of dark matter, they have an advantage in that they are at least known to exist.
The same cannot be said for sure of another possible form of dark matter being studied by a group of physicists in Italy. If the result continues to withstand scrutiny, it would appear to be evidence for an exotic new sort of fundamental particle, known as an axion, which could also be a type of dark matter.

单选题 What does the word "pervades"(Line 1, Para. 1) mean?
[A] Be of higher rank or authority.
[B] To spread through the whole extent of.
[C] To gain the victory or superiority.
[D] To make something come true.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 词义题；符合新大纲中仍然包含的“根据上下文推测生词的词义”的阅读理解要求。要结合句子和整个段落的意思来确定它的意思；从段落表达的意思来看，人类已知的部分只占整个宇宙的百分之四。而对于其他部分，都属于第一句中的“unknown”的部分， 所以未知世界和宇宙之间的关系，也就是unknown和universe之间的关系就确定了pervade 的意思。所以这里的pervade应当解释成“占据，遍布”之类的意思，结合4个选项，B选项的表述正反映了这样的意思，是正确选项。
单选题 What aspect about neutrinos has been questioned in recent years?
[A] Neutrinos are in the shape of points.
[B] There are altogether three different varieties of Neutrinos.
[C] Neutrinos do not have any mass.
[D] Neutrinos are the most abundant particles in the universe.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题；题干中的定位关键词是neutrinos，由于是本篇中的专有名词，比较容易帮助我们定位本题考查的区域，在原文中相关信息出现在第二自然段。而考查词则是question，比较原文我们可以看出这里的question对应于原文的challenge，这个词之前提到的 point-1ike和massless，以及B和D选项的内容在原段落中都有体现，但是当我们再比较阅读challenge之后的内容，我们发现that neutrinos might．have mass确定了这个题目的正确选项针对是neutrinos是否有mass的问题，mass在这里是“质量，重量”的意思。
单选题 How should we understand the process of oscillation?
[A] Cosmic rays are used to produce muon neutrinos.
[B] Muon neutrinos went missing during experiments.
[C] Cosmic rays hit the upper atmosphere.
[D] One flavor of neutrinos is changed into another one.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题；oscillation尽管对于大多数考生都是生词，但是反而可以帮助我们更加迅速地定位到原文的第三自然段，通过对原文的阅读我们可以知道，对于neutrinos来说，在实验的过程中数量有所减少，而原文明确告诉我们数量减少必然出现形态的转换，也就是我们在第二自然段读到的3种不同的flavor，比较阅读选项，D正确地表达了这样的意思。
单选题 Which one of the following is NOT true about the experiment mentioned in Paragraph 4 ?
[A] It can be used to confirm previous suspects about neutrinos.
[B] The number of muon neutrinos changed in the process of the experiment.
[C] A more accurate number can be put on the mass of neutrinos based on this experiment.
[D] The result of the experiment contradicts that in 1998.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题；首先需要判断的是第四段的实验和第三段的实验之间的关系，通过过渡句researchers hope to produce the most accurate measurements yet以及比较两段内容之后，我们才可以最终确定，这里提到的两个实验在方向上是一致的，都是在论证：neutrinos确实会出现flavor的转变，而这一段的进步就体现在它更加精确地确定了发生转变的数量，所以A选项的confirm准确地描述了这种关系，而D选项的contradict则是错误的表述。而B和C的表述是对原文中对实验过程的细节捕述的同义表达，在比较阅读中判断其准确性难度不大，所以对此实验描述出现错误的是D选项。
单选题 Which one of the following statements is true about axion?
[A] It is known for sure to exist although not enough evidence is available.
[B] It is another possible constituent of dark matter.
[C] The search for hypothetical particle has failed so far.
[D] If successful, experiment will prove it to be the sole form of dark matter.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题；axion对于绝大多数考生来说是生僻的词汇，但恰好可以帮助我们迅速定位到原文的最后一段。A和D选项都需要我们结合前面一段的论述进行判断，因为这一段落中的the same cannot be said for sure of这样的表达告诉我们前面的信息对这里的判断仍然具有价值，而比较阅读之后我们发现，A选项的for sure以及D选项的sole form都和原文表达的意思截然相反。C选项的判断没有原文信息可以支持，而B选项的表达是严谨的，这里对于axion的探索是建立在假设基础上的一种逐步论证的过程，此处的possible很好地体现了这种在结果没有最终确定之前严谨的科学态度，和整个文章属于理科文章的表述风格是一致的，也是我们这个题目的正确选项。