科技英语综合复习资料
科技英语综合复习资料
Part I Vocabulary and Structure（词汇与结构）
1. As parts of the world become ______, millions of people will try to migrate to more ______ areas.
A. hospitable… uninhabitable
B. uninhabitable… hospitable
C. habitable… inhospitable
D. inhospitable … uninhabitable
2. A(n) ______ is someone who is being considered for a position, for example someone who is running in
an election or applying for a job.
A. astronomer
B. scientist
C. candidate
D. researcher
3. There are scientific satellites in __________ that measure wave heights, but too few to give reliable
worldwide coverage.
A. mark
B. orbit
C. store
D. line
4. The first-year courses provide short introductions to these areas, while the second-year courses
__________ the areas in greater depth.
A. classify
B. investigate
C. clear
D. examine
5. Their marriage was in danger of breaking up last year but it seems quite ______ now.
A. favorable
B. critical
C. profitable
D. stable
6. If individuals are awakened each time as they began a dream phase of sleep, they are likely to become
irritable even if their total amount of sleep has been ______.
A. efficient
B. sufficient
C. deficient
D. proficient
7. Linda didn’t like the work because it lacked __________; she was doing the same thing all the time.
A. anxiety
B. priority
C. variety
D. society
8. She wanted to ask him all about his private life, but wisely __________ herself.
A. rescued
B. held
C. restrained
D. curbed
9. After he was attacked, he managed to __________ to the phone and call for help.
A. pound
B. come
C. turn
D. stagger
10. The issue was whether or not the bacteria (细菌) in his body would __________ the local ecosystem.
A. break
B. balance
C. contaminate
D. contain
11. Moving to a new school can __________ a child’s education, especially between the ages of eleven and
sixteen.
A. upset
B. balance
C. disrupt
D. disorder
12. China’s news media is following world trend by marketization and __________into enterprises.
A. conversion
B. translation
C. transplanting
D. transforming
13. Up to 22 people were killed and 187 others injured in a suicide bomb attack which ______ a
demonstration in a northern Iraqi city.
A. transported
B. targeted
C. yielded
D. aimed
14. The general secretary’s decision to inv est was a ______ mistake, resulting in a heavy loss of money.
A. firm
B. private
C. costly
D. incentive
15. I feel nervous about the ______ of the experiment as it determines the future of this domain.
A. outcome
B. outlook
C. output
D. outline
16. Once attached to the host Program, the computer viruses then look for other programs to ______.
A. affect
B. effect
C. infect
D. perfect
17. Their government always looks at problems from the financial viewpoint, and the social ______ is
never considered.
A. inspect
B. prospect
C. aspect
D. respect
18. One’s appearance does not always ______ with his quality, so don’t judge people by looks.
A. compare
B. coincide
C. collide
D. content
19. We work best in a peaceful and comfortable __________ so as to increase our productivity and relieve
our exhaustion.
A. pace
B. atmosphere
C. rhyme
D. hemisphere
20. The new _________ of this dictionary has not been in use yet, but its appearance has aroused quite a lot
of attention.
A. vision
B. version
C. variation
D. verification
21. The news slowly __________ through to everyone in the office; finally everybody felt worried about
the uncertainty of the future.
A. melted
B. froze
C. filtered
D. flowed
22. We do remember your initial objections, but unfortunately you didn’t place them ______.
A. in register
B. to document
C. in between
D. on record
23. The cost may be lower than we first thought, but ______ it will still be quite substantial.
A. in no case
B. in any case
C. in case of
D. in case
24. Sometimes you can _______ valuable antiques by chance – for example when you’re clearing out an
old building.
A. come by
B. come in
C. come out
D. come down
25. Obviously you came here intending to _______ the United States and you will need a work visa.
A. rest with
B. resort to
C. render into
D. reside in
26. You will find how to help your child to develop good habits and how to ______ with the bad ones that
can cause so much embarrassment and distress.
A. deal
B. agree
C. calculate
D. endeavor
27. We’ve worked out a method by which our production can be raised on a large ______.
A. quantity
B. scale
C. quality
D. proportion
28. It is a universal ______ that man is different from all the other animals because man can communicate
with each other by means of language.
A. admission
B. permission
C. acknowledgment
D. advancement
29. Due to the limited seating _____ of the hall, merely about 700 journalists were present for the press
conference.
A. capacity
B. capability
C. possibility
D. probability
30. When he applied for a ______ in the office of the local newspaper he was told to see the manager.
A. position
B. location
C. profession
D. career
31. The island’s population initially numbered 180, but there was a gradual __________ until only 40
people were left.
A. declination
B. incline
C. inclination
D. decline
32. For such a tiny woman she had a(n)______ courage to fight against two thieves.
A. incredible
B. resistant
C. staple
D. massive
33. One cause of the current food crisis is ______ and food prices are high in part because of the dry
weather in these places.
A. flood
B. cough
C. rough
D. drought
34. Coal can be ______ into gas with the help of the modern technology.
A. yield
B. converted
C. overcame
D. reverted
35. Many Internet users are worried about their privacy being ______ and their secrets being revealed by
online hackers.
A. invaded
B. intaken
C. invented
D. investigated
36. The new ______ edition of this book focuses specifically on the complexities of grammatical choices
that students need to master.
A. altered
B. converted
C. modified
D. revised
37. The poor condition of this apartment block is a danger to all its __________.
A. habitats
B. inhabitants
C. habits
D. inherits
38. Enough lava had __________ from the volcano to bury the entire village.
A. disrupted
B. splashed
C. erupted
D. spilt
39. You are legally ______ to take faulty goods back to the store where you bought them.
A. devoted
B. entitled
C. accessed
D. contributed
40. Time and time again, women seem to ______ on promotion and career opportunities.
A. fall out
B. lose out
C. wipe out
D. put out
41. _______ in the office had a mistake, and the firm regretted causing the customer inconvenience.
A. Someone
B. Anyone
C. No one
D. Everyone
42. Rod is determined to get a seat for the concert ______ it means standing in a queue all night.
A. as if
B. provided
C. even if
D. whatever
43. Although Mary is satisfied with her success, she wonders ______ will happen to her private life.
A. how
B. who
C. what
D. that
44. If the whole program _______ beforehand, a great deal of time and money would have been lost.
A. was not planned
B. were not planned
C. would not be planned
D. had not been planned
45. More and more families have moved elsewhere because they cannot ____ the noise from the
neighboring airport.
A. come up with
B. put up with
C. catch up with
D. keep up with
46. Her sun-tanned face suggested that she _______ in excellent health.
A. be
B. is
C. was
D. were
47. Ever since the Smiths moved to the suburbs a year ago, they _______ better health.
A. could have enjoyed
B. had enjoyed
C. have been enjoying
D. are enjoying
48. This magazine is very _____ with young people, who like its content and style.
A. familiar
B. popular
C. similar
D. Particular
49. _____ twice, the postman refused to deliver our letters unless we chained our dog.
A. Being bitten
B. Bitten
C. Having been bitten
D. To be bitten
50. The morning paper ______a story about demonstrations in New York and Washington D.C..
A. carried
B. extended
C. brought
D. Took
Part II Identification（判断正误）
1. No sooner had they entered the room when the telephone rang.
2. As a graduate from high school, Tom is faced with three choices: attending college, finding a job or joining the army.
3. It was his nervousness in the interview which probably caused him to lose the job.
4. I invited Joe and Linda as well as Tom to dinner, but none of them came.
5. You can arrive in Beijing earlier for the meeting though you don’t mind taking the night train.
6. Why not stay at home now that the road is so slippery after the heavy snow？
7. But for the help of my English teacher, I would not have won the first prize in the English Writing Competition.
8 .Those brave army soldiers would rather die with their heads high than lived with their knees bent.
9. It is no good try to remember grammatical rules.You need to practice what you have learned.
10. The Great Wall is such a well-known tourist attraction that millions of people pour in every year.
11. Equipped with modem facilities, today's hospitals are quite different from that of the past.
12. We solved the problem by using a computer rather than doing it all by hand.
13. Over the past 20 years , the internet has helped change our world in either way or another
for the better.
14. How and why this language has survived for more than a thousand years, while spoken by very few, was hard to explain.
15. Nearly half of Americans aged 25 take part in some form of continued education.
Part III Word-filling (单词填空)
1. Georgia said it would take a_____（咄咄逼人的）diplomatic steps to respond to the Russian action in order to defend its rights.
2. In most western countries, upon reaching an a____（适当的）age, children are encouraged, but not forced, to ―leave the nest‖.
3. Among all the voting people, the great majority agreed to a _____(废除) this kind of cruel punishment as it is against morality.
4. But party spokesman, and then the new government, said that for children aged under 11 support would c___（终止）at the end of primary education, while for those already in secondary education, assistance would continue until the end of schooling.
5. The current trade d___（赤字）indicates a serious imbalance between our import and export trade.
6. Have you considered being s__（赞助）during your time at university? You should, because many students have found it a great help not only during their time as an undergraduate but also in securing employment after graduating.
7. The increasing ___(employ) caused social unrest, therefore the government must take prompt and effective measures to resolve it.
8. It took the authorities a long time to make ___(identify) of the accident victims.
9. I want our youngsters to follow their own skills and ___(ambitious), and not to be confined by artificial barriers and outdated social conventions.
10. Supplies may___(fluctuation) ac cording to seasonal availability but you’ll always find a wide selection.
11. The ____ (extract) of mineral resources from the ground has left huge scars on the landscape.
12. The inflation rate cannot be properly ____(quantity) but the official figure is 46%.
13. He is very aggressive, totally ___(dominant) everyone he works with.
14. Many experts gave opinions at the meeting, but u___(最终地) the decision lay with the president before it was released to the public.
15. He condemned the w___(浪费) of having everyone driving around in private cars instead of using public transport.
Part IV Sentence translation（句子翻译）
A. E-C Translation（英汉翻译）
1. But dependency is no vice when the habit is healthful —and you don’t have to be an Olympian to benefit.
2. Despite our preference for giving up privacy in exchange for convenience, our experiences online may make us yearn for the anonymity of the past.
3. While cautioning that margin of error was large enough for render data from the early centuries untrustworthy, they found that 20th century was the warmest of the millennium.
4. There has been some concern that the larger denomination notes — a 500 note is worth approximately 315 at the current exchange rate — will be rich pickings for counterfeiters, especially in the early days as people get used to the new currency.
5. Chemically any petroleum is an extremely complex mixture of hydrocarbon (hydrogen and carbon) compounds, with minor amounts of nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur as impurities.
6. In developing countries desperate to feed fast-growing and underfed populations, the issue is simpler
and much more urgent: Do the benefits of biotech outweigh the risks?
7. But genetically modified, virus-resistant crops can reduce that damage, as can drought-tolerant seeds in
regions where water shortages limit the amount of land under cultivation.
8. If you are successful, you won’t have to go ask for a raise or accept what you’re given or worry about being turned out when a younger version of yourself comes along.
9. Planning involves setting the firm’s objectives over a period of time and deciding on methods to
achieve these objectives.
10. He was satisfied with his new car, and drove to work in it the very next day.
11. You and your team can discover the answers to problems together.
12. Students can study by themselves through school network..
13. There is something urgent for you to do right now.
14. They have been working together for three months and have come to know each other better.
15. Because there was heavy traffic, we were ten minutes late.
16. We're running behind schedule by about 15 minutes.
17. Once all the information is completed, you sign here.
18. Fires may do more damage than the earthquakes.
19. Twelve people take part in the experiment, four working as a group.
20. Red and green light, if mixed in the right proportion, will give us yellow.
B. C-E Translation（汉英翻译）
1. 请允许我向你的成功表示祝贺。(congratulate on)
2. 不管怎样，在我们对人类对环境的影响做出科学的评估之前，仍有很长的一段路要走。(in any case).
3. 他虽然学识渊博，但对这种生物科技引起的情况他也不知道如何应付。(for all )
4. 管理者的层次越低，越有可能花时间去执行非管理性任务。(the mor e…, the mor e…)
5. 山起着稳定地球外壳的作用。（play a role in）
6. 他日益发现一份奔波于全球的职业同传统的家庭生活很难兼具。(combine with)
7. 借助清晰的图表，可以看出需求的增长如何影响利润。(by means of)
8.那位新的候选人决定参加竞选时，竞争对手们的竞选活动均已达到高潮。(in full swing )
9. 中国是一个富产宝贵的自然资源---原油的国家。(be rich in)
10. 由于2008年的奥运会，北京发生了重大变化。(due to)
11. 我们必须努力学习，否则就无法通过考试。(otherwise)
12. 在英语学习中，我们最需要的就是练习。(what)
13. 电是一种非常重要的能源，没有它，现代化工业就不能发展。(such…that)
14. 有了他的帮助，我们就没有其他什么可担心的了。(worry about)
15. 一定记住到那里就给家里写信。（as soon as）
Part V Reading Comprehension(阅读理解)
Passage 1
Geology is a natural science. With it men can discover all kinds of useful minerals. Geology studies the earth. But of the three spheres, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the lithosphere, it only directly studies the lithosphere. It studies the composition and distribution of material in the earth’s crust. It studies
also the formation, changes and development of rocks and minerals in the earth’s crust.
Geology is a very complex science. There are many branches in geology. Mineralogy is the science of the minerals. Petrology is the science of the rocks. Geomorphology deals with origin of landscapes and changes in them. Historical geology traces the evolution and development of the earth and of the animals and plants on it. Stratigraphy studies the sequence of the rocks in the earth’s crust. Paleontology deals with the ancient animals and plants. These are just a few of the most important branches of geology.
Geology is a very important science. We depend upon geology for the discovery of mineral deposits needed by the various industries. A lot of minerals are used as fuel and raw materials. Without them industrialization is impossible. Minerals are also used as fertilizers in agriculture. China is very rich in mineral deposits of all kinds. The study of geology will help us to discover them.
Petroleum occurs widely in the earth as gas, liquid, semisolid, or solid, or in more than one of these states at a single place. Chemically any petroleum is an extremely complex mixture of hydrocarbon (hydrogen and carbon) compounds, with minor amounts of nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur as impurities. Liquid petroleum, which is called crude oil to distinguish it from refined oil, is the most important commercially. It consists chiefly of the liquid hydrocarbons, with varying amounts of dissolved gases, bitumens, and impurities.
Petroleum gas, commonly called natural gas to distinguish it from manufactured gas, consists of the lighter paraffin hydrocarbons, of which the most abundant is methane gas (CH4). The semisolid and solid forms of petroleum consist of the heavy hydrocarbons and bitumens.
Geology plays an important role in the search for oil and natural gas. Four prerequisites are necessary for oil (and gas) to accumulate in commercial quantities in an area: (1) The oil originates in a source bed, and a marine shale, once a black mud rich in organic compounds, is thought to be a common source rock.
(2) The oil then migrates to a permeable reservoir rock, and to do this it may travel for long distances both vertically and horizontally. Oil cannot move through the tiny openings of the shale source beds rapidly enough to be extracted profitably. (3) A nonpermeable layer must occur above a reservoir bed. Since oil is lighter than water, it tends to move upward through openings and cracks until it encounters impervious beds that it cannot penetrate. The oil may then accumulate beneath the impervious layers. Some gas occurs in solution within the oil, and if enough is present it separates out to occupy the uppermost region of such a trap. (4) A favorable structure must exist to concentrate the oil and anticlines, salt plugs, and faults are common examples. A fault zone may itself be impervious, or faulting may have shifted an impervious bed
so that it now blocks a reservoir bed. Stratigraphic traps tend to be more difficult to locate and may form where tilted reservoir beds are overlain unconformably by impervious layers or where the reservoir beds become thinner up-dip and wedge out within enclosing impervious beds. Thus oil that was once distributed in sparse amounts throughout a very large volume of rock may now be richly concentrated within the uppermost portions of favorable reservoir rocks.
The task of the geologist is the location of promising structures in regions where rocks are favorable for the occurrence of the other prerequisites. Drilling a hole is then the only known method of determining whether or not oil is present in the structure.
1. What is mainly dealt with in the passage?
A. The formation of oil.
B. The formation of rocks.
C. The general introduction of geology.
D. The roles of geology in finding oil.
2. Geology is a natural science and it does NOT study______.
A. the minerals in the earth’s crust
B. the rocks in the earth’s crust
C. the evolution and development of the earth
D. the origin of the atmosphere surrounding the earth
3. One prerequisite for oil to accumulate in quantity is that the oil originates in ______.
A. a source rock
B. a black mud
C. the seawater
D. organic compounds
4. In the formation of oil, a nonpermeable layer above a reservoir bed is necessary because it can ______.
A. accelerate the travel speed of the oil
B. hinder the oil to move upward
C. help the oil to move upward
D. help people to discover the oil
5. Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. Drilling a hole is one of the known methods of determining whether or not oil is present in the
structure.
B. A geologist usually tries to locate promising structures in regions where rocks are favorable for the
occurrence of the other prerequisites.
C. An unfavorable structure must exist to concentrate the oil.
D. A permeable layer must occur above a reservoir bed.
Passage 2
In order to talk about the nature of the universe and to discuss questions such as whether it has a beginning or an end, you have to be clear about what a scientific theory is. I shall take the simple-minded view that a theory is just a model of the universe, or a restricted part of it, and a set of rules that relate quantities in the model to observations that we make.It exists only in our minds and does not have any other reality. A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.For example, Aristotle’s theory that everything was made out of four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, was simple enough to qualify, but it did not make any definite predictions. On the other hand, Newton’s theory of gravity was based on an even simpler model, in which bodies attracted each other with a force that was proportional to a quantity called their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Yet it predicts the motion of the sun, the moon, and the planets to a high degree of accuracy.
Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. In practice, what often happens is that a new theory that is devised is really an extension of the previous theory.
The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe. However, the approach most scientists actually follow is to separate the problem into two parts. First, there are the laws that tell us how the universe changes with time. If we know what the universe is like at any one time, these physical laws tell us how it will look at any later time. Second, there is the question of the initial state of the universe. Some people feel that science should be concerned with only the first part; they regard the question of the initial situation as a matter for religion. They would say that God could have started the universe off any way he wanted. That may be so, but in that case he also could have made it develop in a completely arbitrary way. Yet it appears that he chose to make it evolve in a very regular way according to certain laws. It therefore seems equally reasonable to suppose that there are also laws governing the initial state.
It turns out to be very difficult to devise a theory to describe the universe all in one go. Instead, we break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories. Each of these partial theories describes and predicts a certain limited class of observations, neglecting the effects of other quantities, or representing them by simple sets of numbers. It may be that this approach is completely wrong. If everything in the universe depends on everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation. Nevertheless, it is certainly the way that we have made progress in the past. The classical example is the Newtonian theory of gravity, which tells us that the gravitational force between two bodies depends only on one number associated with each body, its mass, but is otherwise independent of what the bodies are made of. Thus one does not need to have a theory of the structure and constitution of the sun and the planets in order to calculate their orbits.
Today scientists describe the universe on terms of two basic partial theories — the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. They are the great intellectual achievements of the first half of this century. The general theory of relativity describes the force of gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, deals with phenomena on extremely small scales, such as a millionth of a millionth of an inch. Unfortunately, however, these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other — they cannot both be correct. One of the major endeavors in physics today, is the search for a new theory that will incorporate them both — a quantum theory of gravity. We do not yet have such a new theory, and we may still be a long way from having one, but we do already know many of the properties that it must have.
6. According to the author, a theory is all of the following EXCEPT for ______.
A. a model of the universe
B. a restricted part of the universe
C. a set of rules
D. a reality
7. The difference between Aristotle’s theory and Newton’s theory is ______.
A. Aristotle’s theory can describe a large class of observations, while Newton’s cannot.
B. Newton’s theory can describe a large class of observations, while Aristotle’s cannot.
C. Aristotle’s theory can make a definite prediction of the future observations, while Newton’s cannot.
D. Newton’s theory can make a definite prediction of the future observations, while Aristotle’s cannot.
8. The approach adopted by most scientists to devise a theory to describe the universe is _________.
A. to break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories
B. to invent one theory to describe the whole universe
C. to combine general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics
D. to study the origin of the universe
9．It is described in Newton’s theory of gravity that bodies attracted each other with a force which is ______.
A. inversely proportional to their mass
B.inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them
C. proportional to the square of the distance between them
D. proportional to the constitution of them
10．According the passage, the great intellectual achievements of the first half of the 20th century are ______.
A. Newton’s theory of gravity and the general theory of relativity
B. Newton’s theory of gravity and quantum mechanics
C. the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics
D. the general theory of relativity and the quantum theory of gravity
Passage 3
The current energy security system was created in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo to ensure coordination among the industrialized countries in the event of a disruption in supply, encourage collaboration on energy policies, and deter any future use of an ―oil weapon‖ by exporters. Its key elements are the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), whose members are the industrialized countries; strategic stockpiles of oil, including the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves; continued monitoring and analysis of energy markets and policies; and energy conservation and coordinated emergency sharing of supplies in the event of a disruption. The emergency system was set up to offset major disruptions that threatened the global economy and stability, not to manage prices and the commodity cycle. Since the system’s inception in the 1970s, a coordinated emergency drawdown of strategic stockpiles has occurred only twice: on the eve of the Gulf War in 1991 and in the autumn of 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.
Experience has shown that to maintain energy security countries must abide by several principles. The first and most familiar is what Churchill urged more than 90 years ago: diversification of supply. Multiplying one’s supply sources reduces the impact of a disruption in supply from one source by
providing alternatives, serving the interests of both consumers and producers, for whom stable markets are a prime concern. But diversification is not enough. A second principle is resilience, a ―security margin‖ in the energy supply system that provides a buffer against shocks and facilitates recovery after disruptions. Resilience can come from many factors, including sufficient spare production capacity, strategic reserves, backup supplies of equipment, adequate storage capacity along the supply chain, and the stockpiling of critical parts for electric power production and distribution, as well as carefully conceived plans for responding to disruptions that may affect large regions. Hence the third principle: recognizing the reality of integration. There is only one oil market, a complex and worldwide system that moves and consumes about 86 million barrels of oil every day. For all consumers, security resides in the stability of this market. Secession is not an option.
A fourth principle is the importance of information. High-quality information underpins well-functioning markets. On an international level, the IEA has led the way in improving the flow of information about world markets and energy prospects. That work is being complemented by the new International Energy Forum, which will seek to integrate information from producers and consumers. Information is no less crucial in a crisis, when consumer panics can be instigated by a mixture of actual disruptions, rumors, and fear. In such situations, governments and the private sector should collaborate to counter panics with high-quality, timely information.
As important as these principles are, the past several years have highlighted the need to expand the concept of energy security in two critical dimensions: the recognition of globalization of the energy security system, which can be achieved especially by engaging China and India, and the acknowledgement of the fact that the entire energy supply chain needs to be protected.
11. The energy security system was established for the following long-term purpose EXCEPT ______.
A. protecting profits of industrialized countries during Arab oil embargo
B. making effective coordination among those industrialized countries
C. promoting cooperation in making policies about energy
D. preventing oil exporters from using oil as a weapon against other countries
12. Which of the following statements about International Energy Agency is NOT true?
A. Its headquarter is located in Paris.
B.Its members include developed and developing countries.
C. It monitors and analyzes the energy market and policies.
D. It makes great efforts to save energy and deal with oil disruption.
13. The first and foremost thing that both consumers and producers are concerned about is ______.
A. various supply sources
B. stable energy markets
C. the largest profits
D. reasonable prices
14. Integration, the third principle to maintain energy security, means to ______.
A. recognize the reality of energy shortage
B. guarantee the stability of energy market
C.realize the unity of the worldwide market
D. protect one’s independent interests
15. The main purpose of this passage is to ______.
A. convince readers that energy security is important
B. introduce the major energy organizations of U.S.
C. inform readers what the energy security system is like
D. present principles for ensuring energy security
Passage 4
I spent some of the most exciting days of my life working on the eastern shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana, searching for the fossilized remains of our early ancestors. We did not always find what we wanted, but every day there was much more to discover than the traces of our own predecessors. The fossils, some quite complete, others mere fragments, spoke of another world in which the ancestors of many of today’s Af rican mammals roamed in the rich grassland and forest fringes between 1.5 million and 2 million years ago. The environment was not too different from the wetter grasslands of Africa today, but it was full of amazing animals that are now long extinct.
One in particular I would have loved to see alive was a short-necked giraffe relative that had huge ―antlers‖, some with a span across the horns of close to almost 3 meters. There were buffalo-size antelopes with massive curving horns, carnivores that must have looked like saber-toothed lions, two distinct species of hippo and at least two types of elephants. We may never know the full extent of this incredible mammalian diversity, but there were probably more than twice as many species a million years ago as there are today.
That was true not just for Africa. The fossil record tells the same story everywhere. Most of life’s experiments have ended in extinction. It is estimated that more than 95% of the species that have existed over the past 600 million years are gone.
So, should we be concerned about the current spasm of extinction, which has been accelerated by the inexorable expansion of agriculture and industry? Is it necessary to try to slow down a process that has been going on forever?
I believe it is. We know that the well-being of human race is tied to the well-being of many other species, and we can’t be sure which species are most important to our own survival.
But dealing with the extinction crisis is no simple matter, since much of the world’s biodiversity resides in its poorest nations, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Can such countries justify setting aside national parks and nature reserves where human encroachment and even access is forbidden? Is it legitimate to spend large sums of money to save some species —be it an elephant or an orchid —in a nation in which a sizable percentage of the people are living below the poverty line?
Such questions make me uneasy about promoting wildlife conservation in impoverished nations. Nonetheless, I believe that we can —and should —do a great deal. It’s a matter of changing priorities. Plenty of money is available for scientific field studies and conferences on endangering species. But what about boots and vehicles for park personnel who protect wildlife from poachers? What about development aid to give local people economic alternatives to cutting forests and plowing over the land? That kind of funding is difficult to come by.
People in poor countries should not be asked to choose between their own short-term survival and long-term environmental needs. If their governments are willing to protect the environment, the money needed should come from international sources. To me, the choice is clear. Either the more affluent world helps now or the world as a whole will lose out.
Of course, we must be careful not to allow the establishment of slush funds or rely on short-term, haphazard handouts that the world would probably go to waste. We need a permanent global endowment devoted to wildlife protection, funded primarily by the governments of the industrial nations and international aid agencies. The principal could remain invested in the donor nations as the interest flowed steadily into conservation efforts.
How to use those funds would be a matter of endless debate. Should local communities be entitled to set the agenda, or should outside experts take control? Should limited hunting be allowed in parks, or
should they be put off limits? Mistakes will be made, the landscape will keep changing, and species will still be lost, but the difficulty of the task should not lead us to abandon hope. Many of the planet’s natural habitats are gone forever, bur many others can be saved and in time restored.
A major challenge for the 21st century is to preserve as much of our natural estate as possible. Let us resist with all our efforts any moves to reduce the amount of wild land available for wild species. And let us call upon the world’s richest nations to provide the money to make that possible. That would not be a contribution to charity; it would be an investment in the future of humanity —and all life on Earth.
16. The purpose of the author’s work on the eastern shores of Lake Turkana was ______.
A. to discover the fossil history of African mammals
B. to search for the traces of the extinct animal species
C. to discover the fossils of human being’s predecessors
D. to study the fragments of the fossils of the ancestors of African mammals
17. The following is true EXCEPT ______.
A. The welfare of the human species is bound up with that of the other species.
B. Human development in agriculture and industry speeds up the process of distinction of some species.
C. Fossil history suggests that 95% of the species will be a failure in their struggles for survival.
D. The process of the extinction of species seems to be going on ceaselessly.
18. To which of the following would the author probably say ―No‖?
A. Should we be concerned about the extinction of the species, which has been accelerated by the
expansion of agriculture and industry?
B. Should a nation, most of whose people are still living below the poverty line, spend large sums of
money to preserve species?
C. Is it necessary to provide woodcutters in poverty-stricken nations with the economic alternatives to
making a living on cutting down trees?
D. Is it necessary to change our priorities and provide more equipment and support for wildlife
protection personnel?
19. The author’s main purpose of writing this article is ______.
A. to champion a global fund mainly from the affluent nations and international efforts to preserve the
wildlife
B. to warn the rich nations against the losing out in protecting the global environment
C. to persuade the impoverished people to sacrifice their short-term benefit for long-term protection of
the biodiversity
D. to take into account the difficulty of wildlife protection and stop endless debate
20. The author’s attitude towards preserving the natural habitats is ______.
A. uncertain
B. positive
C. hopeless
D. Uneasy
Passage 5
The Internet seems to have just arrived, so how can we possibly imagine what will replace it? In truth, early versions of the Net have been around since the 1960s and 70s, but only after the mid-1990s did it begin to have a serious public impact. Since 1994, the population of users has grown from about 13 million to more than 300 million around the world.
What will the Internet be like 20 years from now?
Like the rest of infrastructure, the Internet will eventually seem to disappear by becoming widespread. Most access will probably be via high-speed, low-power radio links. Most handheld, fixed and mobile appliances will be Internet enabled. This trend is already discernible in the form of Internet-enabled cell phones and personal digital assistants. Like the servants of centuries past, our household helpers will chatter with one another and with the outside help.
So many appliances, vehicles and buildings will be online by 2020 that it seems likely there will be more things on the Internet than people. Internet-enabled cars and airplanes are coming online, and smart houses are being built every day. Eventually, programmable devices will become so cheap that we will embed them in the cardboard boxes into which we put other things for storage or shipping. These passive ―computers‖ will be activated as they pass sensors and will be able to both emit and absorb information. Such innovations will facilitate increasingly automatic manufacturing, inventory control, shipping and distribution. Checkout at the grocery store will be fully automatic, as will payment via your digital wallet.
The advent of programmable, mini-scale machines will extend the Internet to things with the size of molecules that can be injected under the skin, leading to Internet-enabled people. Such devices, together with Internet-enabled sensors embedded in clothing, will avoid a hospital stay for medical patients who would otherwise be there only for observation. The speech processor used today in cochlear implants for the hearing impaired could easily be connected to the Internet; listening to Internet radio could soon be a
direct computer-to-brain experience!
The Internet will undergo substantial alteration as optical technologies allow the transmission of many trillions of bits per second on each Internet’s fiber-optic backbone network. The core of the network will remain optical, and the edges will use a mix of access technologies, ranging from radio and infrared to optical fiber and the old twisted-pair copper telephone lines.By then, the Internet will have been extended, by means of an interplanetary Internet backbone, to operate in outer space.
How will this pervasive Internet access affect our daily lives? More and more of the world’s information will be accessible instantly and from virtually anywhere. In an emergency, our health records will be available for remote medical consultation with specialists and perhaps even remote surgery. More and more devices will have access to the global positioning system, increasing the value of geographically indexed databases. Using GPS with speech-understanding software that is emerging today, we will be able to get directions from our Internet as easily as we once got them at a filling station.
Is there any downside to a society suffused with information and the tools to process it?
Privacy will come at a premium. Enormous quantities of data about our daily affairs will flow across the Internet, working to make our lives easier. Despite our preference for giving up privacy in exchange for convenience, our experiences online may make us yearn for the anonymity of the past. Who should have access to our medical records and our financial information, and how will that access be controlled? Will we be able to search and use the vast information stored online without leaving trails across the Net? How will business transactions be taxed, and in what jurisdictions will disputed electronic transactions be resolved? How will intellectual property be protected? How will we prove that contracts were signed on a certain date, or that their terms and conditions have not been electronically altered? There are technical answers for many of these questions, but some will require international agreements before they can be resolved.
Perhaps even more daunting, in the face of Internet-wide virus attacks, is the realization that we will depend in larger and larger measure on the network’s functioning reliably. Making this system of millions of networks robust is a challenge for the present generation of Internet engineers. But I am an optimist and believe we are going to live in a world abundant with information and with the tools needed to use it wisely.
21. The main idea the author tries to convey is that ______.