单选题Monarch without a Kingdom This November, a hundred million butterflies will drop from the sky over Mexico, like autumn leaves. But for how long? Genetically modified maize (玉米) could mean extinction for this beautiful butterfly, Rafael Ruiz reports. Although its body is about 3 cm long and it only weighs 1 gin, the Monarch butterfly manages to travel 5,000 km each year. It seems to be so fragile, but its long journeys are proof of its amazing ability to survive. This autumn, the Monarch butterfly will once more set out on its journey from the U. S. It will keep going until it reaches Mexico. It travels these huge distances to escape the cold weather in the north. In November, millions of Monarchs fall like bright, golden rain onto the forests in the mountains of central Mexico. In the silence of these mountains you can hear a strange flapping (拍动) of wings, as the Monarchs arrive at their destination. In the mountains, which reach a height of 3,000 meters, the butterflies are safe. Before reaching their journey"s end they have faced strong winds, rain and snowstorms and they do not all manage to reach their destination. When the winters are really bad, perhaps 70 per cent of them will not survive. Their long journey to Mexico is thought to be one of the most amazing events in the whole of the American continent. When they get there they will stay until the beginning of April, when their internal calendar tells them that it is time to go back. The long journey, with all its dangers, begins again. These delicate creatures now face danger of another kind—from scientific progress. In the U. S., millions of farms grow genetically modified maize which is pure poison for the butterfly. Laboratory experiments have shown that half of the butterflies which feed on the leaves of genetically modified maize die within 48 hours. Not all experts agree that this variety of maize is responsible for the threat to the Monarchs. In spite of these doubts, the European Union has refused to approve new crops of genetically modified maize until further investigations have been carried out. Greenpeace is campaigning against genetically modified products (in Spain, there are already 20,000 hectares of modified maize ). The environmental organization recently published a list of 100 species of butterfly in Europe alone which are threatened with extinction.

单选题A. using photos B. description of the HTML page C. current popular search engines D. document search E. information in images F. machine vision systems The new system does document retrieval by

单选题The Race into Space American millionaire Dennis Tito will always be famous. He was the first tourist in space. "I spent sixty years on Earth and eight days in space and from my viewpoint, it was two separate lives," Tito explained. He loved his time in space. "Being in space and looking back at earth is one of the most rewarding experiences a human being can have." This kind of experience isn't cheap. It cost $ 20 million. However, Tito achieved his dream so he was happy. "For me it was a life dream. It was a dream that began when I didn't have any money," he told reporters. On 30 April 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the world's second space tourist. Shuttleworth is a South African businessman. At the age of twenty-eight he also paid $ 20 million for the eight-day trip. Both Tito and Shuttleworth bought their tickets from a company called Space Adventures. The company has around 100 people already on their waiting list for flights into space. The spaceship to take them doesn't exist yet. Many of the customers are people who like adventure. They are the kind of people who also want to climb Mount Qomolangma. Other customers are people who love space. However, these people are worried. Because it's so expensive, only very rich people can go into space. They want space travel to be available to more people. That day may soon be here. Inter Orbital Systems (IOS) plans to send up to four tourists a week into space. The tours will depart from an island in Tonga. The company promises a package that includes forty-five days of astronaut training in Russia and California, seven days in space, and a vacation in Tonga for $2 million. However, space flight is still very dangerous. Bill Readdy is NASA's deputy assistant administrator for space flight. He says that the chances of dying are about 1 in 500. Because of this it may take time before space tourism really takes off. You might be able to go up, but will you come down?

单选题According to the passage, it may soon be possible

单选题At the meeting both sides exchanged their views on a wide scope of topics they were interested in.A. extentB. numberC. collectionD. range

单选题What is the writer’s attitude to robots in the future?

单选题In short, I am going to live there myself.A. In other wordsB. That is to sayC. In a wordD. To be frank

单选题Life as we know exists on the earth because the atmosphere _________.

单选题We have got to abide by the rules.

单选题Her treatment of the subject is {{U}}exhaustive{{/U}}.

单选题Living alone in a house, the writer seems to

单选题When money was needed for flood relief or to build dams, the money had to come from the federal government, since there were no local funds to Umake use of/U.

单选题Denny His nickname is Denny. He weighs 400 pounds; he is fearless and he never goes to sleep on the job. An ideal security guard? For many situations he may be. And if he"s so good that you wish you had a dozen like him, just place your order. Denny is a robot guard. Denny can detect, within a 150-foot radius, the presence of anything or anybody that shouldn"t be there. Its swiveling (旋转) head contains microwave and infrared sensors that can detect people as well as smoke. In future editions the head will also contain sensors that can smell the weak smell of a human body. A high-resolution TV camera in Denny"s head is on at all time. When something unexpected comes into view, the TV transmitter switches on. Thus the human overseer (看管人) in the control center sees the sudden appearance of a picture on the monitor screen. At the same time the picture is automatically videotaped. Normal speed of the robot guards is about one mile an hour, and they can even talk: "you have been detected," warns the voice from the clever guard. Denny is designed to patrol corridors and other areas after lock-down hours (of course, he can work round the clock when necessary), not to move among people. If, say, a prisoner does get near the corridor where he should not be, it"ll immediately tell its base station by radio. Denny has understandable limitations. He can"t open doors or watch stairs, for example, or distinguish a friend from an enemy. Thus he will have to go about unarmed. And he won"t be able to replace human security guards where people move about freely.

单选题{{B}}第三篇{{/B}} Too Little for Global Warming Oil and gas will run out too fast for doomsday global warming scenarios to materialize, according to a controversial new analysis presented this week at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. The authors warn that all the fuel will be burnt before there is enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to realize predictions of melting ice caps and searing temperatures. Defending their predictions, scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say they considered a range of estimates of oil and gas reserves, and point out that coal-burning could easily make up the shortfall. But all agree that burning coal would be even worse for the planet. The IPCC's predictions of global meltdown pushed forward the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an agreement obliging signatory nations to cut CO2 emissions. The IPCC considered a range of future scenarios, from unlimited burning of fossil-fuels to a fast transition towards greener energy sources. But geologists Anders Sivertsson, Kjell Aleklett and Colin Campbell of Uppsala University say there is not enough oil and gas left even the most conservative of the 40 IPCC scenarios to come to pass. Although estimates of oil and gas reserves vary widely, the researchers are part of a growing group of experts who believe that oil supplies will peak as soon as 2010, and gas soon after. Their analysis suggests that oil and gas reserves combined about to the equivalent of about 3,500 billion barrels of oil considerably less than the 5,000 billion barrels estimated in the most optimistic model envisaged by the IPCC. Even the average forecast of about 8,000 billion barrels is more than twice the Swedish estimate of the world's remaining reserves. Nebojsa Nakicenovic, an energy economist at the University of Vienna, Austria who headed the 80-strong IPCC team that produced the forecasts, says the panel's work still stands. He says they factored in a much broader and internationally accepted range of oil and gas estimates than the "conservative" Swedes. Even if oil and gas run out, "there's a huge amount of coal underground that could be exploited", he says that burning coal could make the IPCC scenarios come true, but points out that such a switch would be disastrous. Coal is dirtier than oil and gas and produces more CO2 for each unit of energy, as well as releasing large amounts of particulates. He says the latest analysis is a "shot across the bows" for policy makers.

单选题The weather is a constant subject of conversation in Britain.

单选题The Moon and most artificial satellites travel around the Earth in elliptical paths .

单选题The Issue of Package Maybe everyone has such an experience that you have to unwrap several layers of packaging when you enjoy a piece of candy. But this overuse of wrapping is not confined to luxuries. It is becoming increasingly difficult to buy anything that is not done up in beautiful wrapping. The package itself is of no interest to the shopper, who usually throws it away immediately. So why is it done? Some of it, like the cellophane on meat, is necessary, but most of the rest is simply competitive selling. This is absurd. Packaging is using up scarce energy and resources and messing up the environment. Recycling is already happening with milk bottles which are returned to the dairies, washed out, and refilled. But both glass and paper are being threatened by the growing use of plastic. More dairies are experimenting with plastic bottles. The trouble with plastic is that it does not rot. Some environmentalists argue that the only solution to the problem of ever increasing plastic containers is to do away with plastic altogether in the shops, a suggestion unacceptable to many manufacturers who say there is no alternative to their handy plastic packs. It is evident that more research is needed into the recovery and reuse of various materials and into the cost of collecting and recycling containers as opposed to producing new ones. Unnecessary packaging, intended to be used just once, and make things look better so more people will buy them, is clearly becoming increasingly absurd. But it is not so much a question of doing away with packaging as using it sensibly. What is needed now is a more advanced approach to using scarce resources for what is, after all, a relatively unimportant function.

单选题To tell you the truth, I did extract several passages from the speech when writing my speech.A. take outB. take offC. take onD. take up

单选题{{B}}第三篇{{/B}} {{B}} Advice of a Writer{{/B}} Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but I also explain that there's a big difference between "being a writer" and writing. In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the long hours alone at a typewriter. "You've got to want to write, I say to them, "not want to be a writer." The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor--paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune there are thousands more whose longing is never rewarded. When I left a 20 _year career in the U. S. Coast Guard to become a freelance writer (自由撰稿者), I had no prospects at all: What I did have was a friend who found me my room in a New York apartment building. It didn't even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom. I immediately bought a used manual typewriter and felt like a genuine writer. After a year or so, however, I still hadn't gotten a break and began to doubt myself. It was so hard to sell a story that barely made enough to eat. But I knew I wanted to write. I had dreamed about it for years. I wasn't going to be one of those people who die wondering, What if? I would keep putting my dream to the test--even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure. This is the Shadowland of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.