单选题
The Northern Lights

The sun is stormy and has it own kind of weather. It is so hot and active that even the Sun's gravity cannot hold its atmosphere in cheek! Energy flows away from the Sun toward the Earth in a stream of electrified particles that move at speeds around a million miles per hour. These particles are called plasma, and the stream of plasma coming from the Sun is called the solar wind. The more active the Sun, the stronger the solar wind.
The solar wind constantly streams toward the Earth, but don't worry because a protective magnetic fields surrounds our planet. The same magnetic field that makes your compass point north also steers the particles from the Sun to the north and south poles. The charged particles become trapped in magnetic belts around the Earth. When a large blast of solar wind crashes into the Earth's magnetic field first gets squeezed and then the magnetic field lines break and reconnect.
The breaking and reconnecting of the magnetic field lines can cause atomic particles called electrons trapped in the belts to fall into the Earth's atmosphere at the poles. As the electrons fall into the Earth, they collide with gas molecules in the atmosphere, creating flashes of light in the sky. Each atmospheric gas glows a different color. Oxygen and nitrogen glows red and green and nitrogen glows violet-purple. As these various colors glow and dance in the night sky, they create the Northern Lights and the Southern Lights.
Watching auroras is fun and exciting, but normally you can only see them in places far north like Alaska and Canada. The movement of the aurora across the sky is usually slow enough to easily follow with your eyes but they can also pulsate, flicker, or even move like waves. During solar maximum, auroras are seen as far south as Florida, even Mexico!
Auroras often seem to be very close to the ground, but the lowest aurora is still about 100 kilometers above the ground, a distance much higher than clouds are formed or airplanes can fly. A typical aurora band can be thousands of kilometers long, a few hundred kilometers high, but only a few hundred meters thick.
We hope you are able to travel to far-north places like the Arctic Circle and see the Northern Lights at least once during your lifetime. We know you will never forget it!

单选题 The Sun's gravity is too weak to keep its plasma from flowing to the Earth.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 第1个答案相关句说“太阳是如此地热,如此地活跃,以至于它的引力无法控制住其大气层”。根据第2个答案相关句可知“等离子体就是来自太阳大气层”。由此可见造成太阳不能阻止其大气层中的等离子体流向地球主要不是太阳引力的问题,而是由于太阳过于活跃,太热了。
单选题 The Earth is quite safe with a magnetic field surrounding it to protect it from the attack by the solar wind.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 问题句说“四周带有磁场的地球是十分安全的,这个磁场能防止地球受到太阳风的攻击”。利用问题句中的特征词(Earth)及细节信息词(magnetic field, solar wind)共同作为答案线索。
单选题 Some scientists are worrying about the possible disappearance of the Earth's protective magnetic field in the future.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 在文章中查找答案相关句。顺着上一题的答案位置往下查找答案相关句:scientists这个线索词连同其近义词或词义相关词,这样的信息没有在文章中出现,因此判断该问题句的内容在文章中没有被提到。
单选题 The auroras are formed when the electrons falling into the Earth's atmosphere at the poles and colliding with gas molecules in the atmosphere.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 利用问题句中的特征词(the Earth's atmosphere)及细节信息词(auroras, electrons, poles, gas molecules)共同作为答案线索。根据文章中答案相关句的内容判断,问题句提供了正确的信息。
单选题 You cannot see the Northern Lights unless you are in Alaska or Canad
【正确答案】
【答案解析】[解析] 利用问题句中的特征词(Alaska, Canada, Northern Lights)共同作为答案线索,答案相关句说“当太阳风暴达到最高峰时,远至佛罗里达,甚至墨西哥都能看见极光”,由此可见问题句提供的信息不正确。
单选题 Tens of thousands of tourists take special trips to Norway and Sweden every year to watch the Northern Lights.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 在文中查找答案相关句。顺着上一题的答案位置往下查找答案相关句,结果发现细节信息词除Northern Lights外都没有出现,因此判断该句内容在文章中没有被提到。
单选题 An aurora is generally close to the ground and is very long and thick.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 从答案相关句的内容可以看出:极光事实上并不接近地面,也不厚,因此问题句提供的信息错误。