2025北京版新教材英语高考第一轮
主题群八 灾害防范与宇宙探索
五年高考
阅读理解
Passage(2019北京,D) 主题 自然科学研究 词数 395
By the end of the century, if not sooner, the world's oceans will be bluer and greener thanks to a warming climate, according to a new study.
At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny marine microorganisms(海洋微生物) called phytoplankton. Because of the way light reflects off the organisms, these phytoplankton create colourful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean colour varies from green to blue, depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas, while reducing it in other spots, leading to changes in the ocean's appearance.
Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface, where they pull carbon dioxide(二氧化碳) into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die, they bury carbon in the deep ocean, an important process that helps to regulate the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean's warming trend. Warming changes key characteristics of the ocean and can affect phytoplankton growth, since they need not only sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow, but also nutrients.
Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a scientist in MIT's Center for Global Change Science, built a climate model that projects changes to the oceans throughout the century. In a world that warms up by 3℃, it found that multiple changes to the colour of the oceans would occur. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener. “Not only are the quantities of phytoplankton in the ocean changing,”she said,“but the type of phytoplankton is changing.”
And why does that matter Phytoplankton are the base of the food web. If certain kinds begin to disappear from the ocean, Dutkiewicz said,“it will change the type of fish that will be able to survive.” Those kinds of changes could affect the food chain.
Whatever colour changes the ocean experiences in the coming decades will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes. “It'll be a while before we can statistically show that the changes are happening because of climate change,” Dutkiewicz said,“but the change in the colour of the ocean will be one of the early warning signals that we really have changed our planet.”
1. What are the first two paragraphs mainly about
A. The various patterns at the ocean surface.
B. The cause of the changes in ocean colour.
C. The way light reflects off marine organisms.
D. The efforts to fuel the growth of phytoplankton.
2. What does the underlined word “vulnerable” in Paragraph 3 probably mean
A. Sensitive. B. Beneficial.
C. Significant. D. Unnoticeable.
3. What can we learn from the passage
A. Phytoplankton play a declining role in the marine ecosystem.
B. Dutkiewicz's model aims to project phytoplankton changes.
C. Phytoplankton have been used to control global climate.
D. Oceans with more phytoplankton may appear greener.
4. What is the main purpose of the passage
A. To assess the consequences of ocean colour changes.
B. To analyse the composition of the ocean food chain.
C. To explain the effects of climate change on oceans.
D. To introduce a new method to study phytoplankton.
三年模拟
阅读理解
Passage 1(2023昌平二模,A) 主题 宇宙探索 词数 305
Every event here features a noted scientist who discusses a different cosmic (宇宙的) topic. These lectures will be presented with a livestream to our Science World official website and questions can be asked in the website chat.
Black Holes
7:30 PM-8:30 PM, May 19, 2023
Description: Most galaxies (星系) have a supermassive black hole at their center. These black holes help determine how galaxies will develop over time. Join Dr. Ansel Netscher for an outline of black holes. You can also explore how supermassive black holes may decide the development of galaxies.
The Webb Imagery
8:00 PM-9:30 PM, May 28, 2023
Description: The amazing visions have attracted the world. But there's a long and involved process by which scientists' black-and-white observational data is transformed into dynamic color imagery for the public. Join image specialist Ralph Wilson as he discusses the art and science of translating infrared light.
Hunt for Distant Worlds
7:00 PM-8:00 PM, Jun. 3, 2023
Description: Since the discovery of the first planet orbiting a Sun-like star in 1995, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been found. These widespread planet systems confirm that our solar system is just one of many in our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery of such systems has provided interesting insights, challenging our views about how planet systems form and develop. Join Dr. Amanda Garcia as she describes the scientific hunt for these distant worlds.
Mars and Beyond
10:00 AM-11:30 AM, Jun. 4, 2023
Description: Will we ever reach Mars And what will it take to travel to other stars Dr. Camille Lopez will meet these questions with a speech of what we can expect in the next 30 years. It's based on what is practical and reasonable when we consider the biological, economic, and philosophical concerns that connect with the engineering challenges of space habitation and exploration.
1. Interested in the development of planets or star systems, you can choose .
①Black Holes ②The Webb Imagery
③Hunt for Distant Worlds ④Mars and Beyond
A. ①④ B. ②④ C. ①③ D. ②③
2. What will you learn from Mars and Beyond
A. Prospect of space travel. B. Application of art to science.
C. The origin and future of Mars. D. Detailed plans of space habitation.
3. What is the main purpose of the passage
A. To publicize online public lectures.
B. To compare events of studying science.
C. To stress the importance of space exploration.
D. To expand people's knowledge about the universe.
Passage 2(2023海淀期中,C) 主题 地球探索 词数 447
Next Frontiers
Schoolbooks typically present explorers as intrepid(勇敢的) individuals who, for example, sail wooden ships to new lands. But today most explorers who are making fundamental discoveries are scientists. And whether the frontiers are tiny, like the human genome, or massive, like our deepest oceans, we still have much left to learn about planet Earth. The quests that modern scientists pursue rival (比得上) anything in a history book or an adventure novel.
Exploration is science in its most basic form—asking questions of the natural world and, we hope, using the answers for the betterment of everything on Earth.
Exploration has great value. It inspires us, widens our knowledge and gives us hope for a better future. And the practical payoffs can even be lifesaving. Scientists who spent decades exploring what was in the atmosphere found that over time the concentration of carbon dioxide was rising. Without that discovery, we humans would now be living like the proverbial frog in a pot of gradually heating water, unsure why the environment around us is changing, and slowly boiling to death.
The human drive to overcome challenges is an essential aspect of the human drive to explore, which, in most cases, spurs innovation. Early human submersibles that reached the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches made the trip just once, stressed by the enormous pressures there. But eventually a more stress-resistant deep-submergence vehicle, the Limiting Factor, allowed investor and undersea explorer Victor Vescovo to reach trench bottoms numerous times.
Now there are roughly 4,000 autonomous Argo floats across the world's oceans that dive down to 2,000 feet and resurface every 10 days. Programmable vessels greatly expand our reach and reduce the risk to the people involved in exploration, allowing for the kind of discovery that the human body might limit. The Argo group will also deploy dozens of sensors every year that will gather biological and chemical data, leading to new observations about marine life.
Other institutions plan to search the seas in unison, sending data to guide ships that forward the information to researchers on shore. Ocean research groups have made it a priority to openly share their discoveries and data with the public and to inspire the next generation of young scientists. Anyone can go along for the ride—we can all be explorers. Maybe one day you'll explore the Great Barrier Reef, the desert, or a rainforest canopy.
Captain James T. Kirk began each episode of the original Star Trek television series by saying, “Space, the final frontier.” Not necessarily. We still have plenty to discover right here on Earth, and we eagerly await surprises from the newest worlds we find.
1. The example “proverbial frog” in Paragraph 3 is used to .
A. illustrate the significance of exploration B. stress the importance of knowledge
C. argue for the necessity of innovation D. show the impact of global warming
2. We can learn from Paragraph 4 and 5 that .
A. the human desire to overcome challenges leads to innovation
B. sea life observation is the final purpose of ocean exploration
C. the findings of ocean exploration are rather disappointing
D. new technologies push human exploration in the ocean
3. What can we infer from the passage
A. Few modern scientists are true explorers.
B. Space will be human's final frontier.
C. Exploring is an inborn human quality.
D. Exploring the earth can still be fruitful.
Passage 3(2023朝阳期中,C) 主题 自然科学研究 词数 441
Fossil by fossil, the story of the birds becomes clearer. It is now well established that modern birds are actually a group of dinosaurs, which survived a crash between the earth and a small planet 66m years ago. This impact wiped out the rest of the dinosaur world, along with a lot of other creatures.
Recently a paper, published in Nature, has released the details of a fossil, which those studying it believe provides our earliest view of what modern birds were like during the initial stages of their evolutional history. The fossil in question is called Asteriornis maastrichtensis. As its name suggests, the rock containing it was dug from deposits(沉积层) found near Maastricht. These deposits are between 66.8m and 66.7m years old.
This particular rock interested palaeontologists(古生物学家) because it included visible leg bones that looked as though they belonged to a bird. Such ancient fossils are rare, so instead of chancing their arms by using physical or chemical methods to explore the rock for more remains, Daniel Field of Cambridge University and his colleagues employed a CT scan, a process more familiar to most people as a medical-scanning technique. The result, an image of the animal's skull with false colours added to clarify which bits are which, can be seen in the picture.
Asteriornis maastrichtensis does indeed turn out to be a member of the modern birds. Specifically, it is part of Galloanserae, which includes both land fowl(家禽), such as chickens and its relatives, and modern waterfowl, like ducks and the like. The skull of Asteriornis maastrichtensis exhibits features of both groups, so it most probably predates the division between them. And its discovery in Europe opens up the debate about whether modern birds originated in the southern part of the earth, as has been proposed.
As to what it looked like when alive, the animal's left upper leg, its best-preserved bone besides those of its skull, suggests Asteriornis maastrichtensis was a long-legged creature that marched around. This, together with evidence that the rock it was preserved in was originally part of a fossil shoreline, has led to reconstructions of modern waterfowl.
Asteriornis maastrichtensis shows that a single fossil can help to nail down previously uncertain dates. The age of the fossil, in fact, suggests that those previous estimates, based on so-called molecular clocks (分子钟), might have overestimated how early the modern birds arose. Based on the discovery of Asteriornis maastrichtensis, the smart money is now on the modern birds as a group being only a little older than the dinosaur-killing impact itself.
1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs
A. The details of the fossil are still in doubt.
B. The deposits were named after the fossil.
C. The crash caused the extinction of dinosaurs.
D. The fossil is seen as the oldest modern bird bones.
2. What can be inferred about Asteriornis maastrichtensis from the passage
A. It attracts palaeontologists as a rare ancient species.
B. It can present the whole picture of modern waterfowl.
C. It allows researchers to confirm where modern birds emerged.
D. It may be the common ancestor of modern chickens and ducks.
3. According to the passage, the author may agree that .
A. fossils promote the accuracy of historical dates
B. it's not wise to dig the deposits for more remains
C. we can't trust fossils more than molecular clocks
D. more investment should be made to study fossils
Passage 4(2023朝阳一模,C) 主题 自然科学研究 词数 457
Clown fish live their adult lives in the protective arms of sea anemones, the small, brightly colored sea animals attached to rocks to house clown fish. Between birth and adulthood, however, the fish have to complete a treacherous journey. After hatching, they swim out to the open sea to finish developing. After maturing, the young fish swim back, during which they have to avoid a “wall of mouths” by sensing the unfriendly smells. With ocean acidification, a trend that is occurring worldwide, scientists began to wonder what might happen to fish's sense of smell.
My team put 300 recently hatched clown fish in our lab. When we introduced a friendly fish odor (气味), they did not react. But when we introduced an enemy odor, they swam away. We then repeated the experiment with 300 new hatchlings from the same parents in the more acidic water—a level we can expect by the year 2100 if current trends continue. When we introduced friendly and unfriendly smells at the same time, the fish seemed unable to make up their minds, spending equal time swimming toward one smell and the other. They could sense chemical signals but couldn't recognize the meaning of them.
It is always tricky to say that behaviors seen in a lab would also be seen in the wild. So we went to a sandy lake near one of the Great Barrier Reef's northern islands to test how wild-caught damselfish would react to enemy smells after exposing them to acidic water. In a tank, about half of them held in water with acidity expected by 2050 were attracted to the unfriendly odor and half were not, yet not one held in water anticipated by 2100 avoided being attracted to the enemy odor. We then let the marked damselfish loose in the lake. The fish once held in the most acidic water swam farther away from their protective home.
Can fish adapt Most studies have habituated fish to lifted acidic conditions over a few days or months—an extremely short length of time. The animals are not given a realistic opportunity to adapt. Yet some scientists thought that fish might escape the anger of ocean acidification, in part because early research done in the 1980s showed that certain animals had an astonishing ability to regulate their internal chemistry to survive acidified water. But maintaining normal functions such as avoiding danger is a different challenge.
At a minimum, confusion could place yet another stressor on fish already challenged by rising water temperatures, overfishing, etc. Further, if many ocean creatures start to behave strangely, entire food webs and ecosystems could come crashing down. Although the science is still new, the results appear to be lining up: ocean acidification is messing with fish's minds.
1. What does the underlined word “treacherous” in Paragraph 1 probably mean
A. Risky. B. Hurried. C. Mysterious. D. Helpless.
2. What can we learn about the fish in the acidic water
A. They lost their senses to chemical signals.
B. They were less likely to respond to threats.
C. Their behavior in the lab disappeared in the wild.
D. They tended to seek the protection from their home.
3. What can be inferred from the passage
A. The author's study confirms previous findings.
B. Fish's adaptation to acidic water is a matter of time.
C. Different fishes behave differently to acidity change.
D. The chances of restoring fish's minds are yet to be seen.
4. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage
A. What Do Different Stressors Do to Ocean Creatures
B. What Does Ocean Acidity Mean to Ocean Creatures
C. How Does Ocean Acidification Destroy the Ecosystem
D. How Do Ocean Creatures Adapt to Ocean Acidification
Passage 5(2023东城一模,D) 主题 宇宙探索 词数 429
Arguably, the biggest science development of the year to date has been the images of the very depths of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Those images beg a comparison between the external and internal universes that science is bent on observing and understanding.
Decades ago, astrophysicist Carl Sagan famously said, “The cosmos(宇宙) is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” He was commenting then on the reality that our internal universe was as complex and as fantastic as outer space.
There are many similarities between the progress we've made in understanding the universe and in piecing together life's inner workings. Like the technological developments that took us from Galileo's telescope to the Hubble to the JWST, life science tools have also improved rapidly. From early light microscopes to modern super-resolution ones, these developments have afforded researchers a deep look into biology's infinitesimal (无限小的) landscape. Learning that living things were composed of cells was, not a terribly long time ago, a revolutionary observation. Since then, scientists have been able to dive ever deeper into the components of life.
Going beyond merely observing the complicated makeup of organisms, life scientists can now discover the workings of molecules (分子). And that is where scanning the universe differs from peering into biology. Understanding the universe, especially from a functional standpoint, is not necessarily an immediate urgency. Understanding biology on that level is. Simply observing the amazing internal structure of cells is not enough. Biologists must also characterize how all those parts interact and change in different environments and when faced with various challenges. Being able to image a virus or bacterium is nice at the level of basic science. But knowing how viruses gain entry into cells and spread, infect, and disable can literally save lives. Through time, biology has risen to this mechanistic challenge. Not only can life science tools produce images of cell components, even more importantly, they can also help predict the effects of drugs on receptors, of immune cells on foreign invaders (入侵者), and of genetic perturbations (基因干扰) on development and aging.
This is not to belittle the work of scientists researching into the universe. They should rightly be praised for delivering views of impossibly distant, impossibly massive phenomena. My aim is to celebrate these accomplishments while at the same time recognizing that science's inward search for detail and insight is equally impressive and, in my view, more urgent. The output of both the outward and inward explorations should stimulate wonder in everyone. After all, it's all star-stuff.
1. Why does the author quote Carl Sagan's comment in Paragraph 2
A. To introduce the background. B. To prove an assumption.
C. To make a comparison. D. To present an idea.
2. Like the study of the universe, life science has been advancing in .
A. study approaches B. system management
C. research facilities D. technology integration
3. We can infer from Paragraph 4 that biologists' work is .
A. practical B. risky C. flexible D. popular
4. As for life science, which would the author agree with
A. It has received universal recognition.
B. It should enjoy priority in development.
C. It can be applied in the majority of areas.
D. It is more complicated than space science.
Passage 6(2022朝阳期末,C) 主题 自然科学研究 词数 405
The return of sea otters(海獭) to Southeast Alaska over the past 50 years, a project funded by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, has been a conservation success story. Erin Foster, a Nearshore Ecology PhD from the Hakai Institute, suggests that sea otter restoration can enhance the genetic diversity of their habitat.
Sea otters reside in coastal habitats, including eelgrass(大叶藻) fields, where they feed on rock crabs, often creating foraging pits (觅食坑) in the eelgrass. Foster looked at the impact of this activity on eelgrass genetic diversity by comparing eelgrass ecosystems with no otters (pre-disturbance) to those where otters had been reintroduced (post-disturbance). It was found that genetic diversity was higher in the areas with otters. Foster argues that genetic richness is of central importance here because it is crucial to resilience (恢复力) and the evolution of clonal organisms. Why The primary mode of expansion for eelgrass is clonal growth, but sea otter digging stimulates sexual reproduction in the flowering plant and opens up areas for the seeds to settle.
Even though disturbance enhances the diversity and dynamics of many of the world's ecosystems, its influence on genetic diversity remains poorly appreciated. The amount of disturbance that was observed in the eelgrass fields was relatively low: about 5% of the seafloor had foraging pits, although the pits last only for a short time, and visual observations likely underestimate the amount of activity. The disturbance theory, presented in 1978 on the basis of evidence from tropical forests and coral reefs, is well known to ecologists. Early studies showed that disturbance could increase species diversity, but researches on the effects of disturbance on genetic diversity are relatively rare.
The role of sea otters in eelgrass fields provides insights into how genetic diversity can change when species interactions are lost—and how these patterns can be restored. Without sea otters, genetic diversity appears to decline; when they return, so does diversity. Sea otters were extirpated from most of their range during intense commercial harvests in the 18th and 19th centuries. As their range expanded in the 1960s and 1970s after the disturbance, and their habitats became better understood, sea otters became a symbolic species in ecology.
The role of sea otters in biogeochemical processes such as the carbon cycle has gained attention in recent years. During the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), more attention should be paid to rebuilding animal populations and the key ecological functions they provide.
1. We can learn from the passage that .
A. eelgrass ecosystems are established by sea otters
B. eelgrass expands through clonal growth due to sea otters
C. the return of sea otters can increase genetic diversity of eelgrass
D. eelgrass plays a more important role in the ecosystem than sea otters
2. What can we infer from Paragraph 3
A. The ecological disturbance theory lacks basic proof.
B. The previous researches on disturbance are insufficient.
C. The necessity of the research on disturbance is doubted.
D. The effects of disturbance on genetic diversity are relatively small.
3. What does the underlined word “extirpated” in Paragraph 4 probably mean
A. Removed. B. Restored. C. Reproduced. D. Relocated.
4. Which of the following would be the best title for this passage
A. The Ecological Function of Eelgrass Fields
B. The Commitment to Ecological Conservation
C. The Strategy for Increasing Sea Otter Population
D. The Benefit of Disturbance on Genetic Diversity
主题群八 灾害防范与宇宙探索
五年高考
阅读理解
Passage(2019北京,D) 主题 自然科学研究 词数 395
By the end of the century, if not sooner, the world's oceans will be bluer and greener thanks to a warming climate, according to a new study.
At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny marine microorganisms(海洋微生物) called phytoplankton. Because of the way light reflects off the organisms, these phytoplankton create colourful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean colour varies from green to blue, depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas, while reducing it in other spots, leading to changes in the ocean's appearance.
Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface, where they pull carbon dioxide(二氧化碳) into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die, they bury carbon in the deep ocean, an important process that helps to regulate the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean's warming trend. Warming changes key characteristics of the ocean and can affect phytoplankton growth, since they need not only sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow, but also nutrients.
Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a scientist in MIT's Center for Global Change Science, built a climate model that projects changes to the oceans throughout the century. In a world that warms up by 3℃, it found that multiple changes to the colour of the oceans would occur. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener. “Not only are the quantities of phytoplankton in the ocean changing,”she said,“but the type of phytoplankton is changing.”
And why does that matter Phytoplankton are the base of the food web. If certain kinds begin to disappear from the ocean, Dutkiewicz said,“it will change the type of fish that will be able to survive.” Those kinds of changes could affect the food chain.
Whatever colour changes the ocean experiences in the coming decades will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes. “It'll be a while before we can statistically show that the changes are happening because of climate change,” Dutkiewicz said,“but the change in the colour of the ocean will be one of the early warning signals that we really have changed our planet.”
1. What are the first two paragraphs mainly about
A. The various patterns at the ocean surface.
B. The cause of the changes in ocean colour.
C. The way light reflects off marine organisms.
D. The efforts to fuel the growth of phytoplankton.
2. What does the underlined word “vulnerable” in Paragraph 3 probably mean
A. Sensitive. B. Beneficial.
C. Significant. D. Unnoticeable.
3. What can we learn from the passage
A. Phytoplankton play a declining role in the marine ecosystem.
B. Dutkiewicz's model aims to project phytoplankton changes.
C. Phytoplankton have been used to control global climate.
D. Oceans with more phytoplankton may appear greener.
4. What is the main purpose of the passage
A. To assess the consequences of ocean colour changes.
B. To analyse the composition of the ocean food chain.
C. To explain the effects of climate change on oceans.
D. To introduce a new method to study phytoplankton.
答案
1. B 2. A 3. D 4. C
三年模拟
阅读理解
Passage 1(2023昌平二模,A) 主题 宇宙探索 词数 305
Every event here features a noted scientist who discusses a different cosmic (宇宙的) topic. These lectures will be presented with a livestream to our Science World official website and questions can be asked in the website chat.
Black Holes
7:30 PM-8:30 PM, May 19, 2023
Description: Most galaxies (星系) have a supermassive black hole at their center. These black holes help determine how galaxies will develop over time. Join Dr. Ansel Netscher for an outline of black holes. You can also explore how supermassive black holes may decide the development of galaxies.
The Webb Imagery
8:00 PM-9:30 PM, May 28, 2023
Description: The amazing visions have attracted the world. But there's a long and involved process by which scientists' black-and-white observational data is transformed into dynamic color imagery for the public. Join image specialist Ralph Wilson as he discusses the art and science of translating infrared light.
Hunt for Distant Worlds
7:00 PM-8:00 PM, Jun. 3, 2023
Description: Since the discovery of the first planet orbiting a Sun-like star in 1995, more than 4,000 exoplanets have been found. These widespread planet systems confirm that our solar system is just one of many in our Milky Way galaxy. The discovery of such systems has provided interesting insights, challenging our views about how planet systems form and develop. Join Dr. Amanda Garcia as she describes the scientific hunt for these distant worlds.
Mars and Beyond
10:00 AM-11:30 AM, Jun. 4, 2023
Description: Will we ever reach Mars And what will it take to travel to other stars Dr. Camille Lopez will meet these questions with a speech of what we can expect in the next 30 years. It's based on what is practical and reasonable when we consider the biological, economic, and philosophical concerns that connect with the engineering challenges of space habitation and exploration.
1. Interested in the development of planets or star systems, you can choose .
①Black Holes ②The Webb Imagery
③Hunt for Distant Worlds ④Mars and Beyond
A. ①④ B. ②④ C. ①③ D. ②③
2. What will you learn from Mars and Beyond
A. Prospect of space travel. B. Application of art to science.
C. The origin and future of Mars. D. Detailed plans of space habitation.
3. What is the main purpose of the passage
A. To publicize online public lectures.
B. To compare events of studying science.
C. To stress the importance of space exploration.
D. To expand people's knowledge about the universe.
答案
1. C 2. A 3. A
Passage 2(2023海淀期中,C) 主题 地球探索 词数 447
Next Frontiers
Schoolbooks typically present explorers as intrepid(勇敢的) individuals who, for example, sail wooden ships to new lands. But today most explorers who are making fundamental discoveries are scientists. And whether the frontiers are tiny, like the human genome, or massive, like our deepest oceans, we still have much left to learn about planet Earth. The quests that modern scientists pursue rival (比得上) anything in a history book or an adventure novel.
Exploration is science in its most basic form—asking questions of the natural world and, we hope, using the answers for the betterment of everything on Earth.
Exploration has great value. It inspires us, widens our knowledge and gives us hope for a better future. And the practical payoffs can even be lifesaving. Scientists who spent decades exploring what was in the atmosphere found that over time the concentration of carbon dioxide was rising. Without that discovery, we humans would now be living like the proverbial frog in a pot of gradually heating water, unsure why the environment around us is changing, and slowly boiling to death.
The human drive to overcome challenges is an essential aspect of the human drive to explore, which, in most cases, spurs innovation. Early human submersibles that reached the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches made the trip just once, stressed by the enormous pressures there. But eventually a more stress-resistant deep-submergence vehicle, the Limiting Factor, allowed investor and undersea explorer Victor Vescovo to reach trench bottoms numerous times.
Now there are roughly 4,000 autonomous Argo floats across the world's oceans that dive down to 2,000 feet and resurface every 10 days. Programmable vessels greatly expand our reach and reduce the risk to the people involved in exploration, allowing for the kind of discovery that the human body might limit. The Argo group will also deploy dozens of sensors every year that will gather biological and chemical data, leading to new observations about marine life.
Other institutions plan to search the seas in unison, sending data to guide ships that forward the information to researchers on shore. Ocean research groups have made it a priority to openly share their discoveries and data with the public and to inspire the next generation of young scientists. Anyone can go along for the ride—we can all be explorers. Maybe one day you'll explore the Great Barrier Reef, the desert, or a rainforest canopy.
Captain James T. Kirk began each episode of the original Star Trek television series by saying, “Space, the final frontier.” Not necessarily. We still have plenty to discover right here on Earth, and we eagerly await surprises from the newest worlds we find.
1. The example “proverbial frog” in Paragraph 3 is used to .
A. illustrate the significance of exploration B. stress the importance of knowledge
C. argue for the necessity of innovation D. show the impact of global warming
2. We can learn from Paragraph 4 and 5 that .
A. the human desire to overcome challenges leads to innovation
B. sea life observation is the final purpose of ocean exploration
C. the findings of ocean exploration are rather disappointing
D. new technologies push human exploration in the ocean
3. What can we infer from the passage
A. Few modern scientists are true explorers.
B. Space will be human's final frontier.
C. Exploring is an inborn human quality.
D. Exploring the earth can still be fruitful.
答案
1. A 2. A 3. D
Passage 3(2023朝阳期中,C) 主题 自然科学研究 词数 441
Fossil by fossil, the story of the birds becomes clearer. It is now well established that modern birds are actually a group of dinosaurs, which survived a crash between the earth and a small planet 66m years ago. This impact wiped out the rest of the dinosaur world, along with a lot of other creatures.
Recently a paper, published in Nature, has released the details of a fossil, which those studying it believe provides our earliest view of what modern birds were like during the initial stages of their evolutional history. The fossil in question is called Asteriornis maastrichtensis. As its name suggests, the rock containing it was dug from deposits(沉积层) found near Maastricht. These deposits are between 66.8m and 66.7m years old.
This particular rock interested palaeontologists(古生物学家) because it included visible leg bones that looked as though they belonged to a bird. Such ancient fossils are rare, so instead of chancing their arms by using physical or chemical methods to explore the rock for more remains, Daniel Field of Cambridge University and his colleagues employed a CT scan, a process more familiar to most people as a medical-scanning technique. The result, an image of the animal's skull with false colours added to clarify which bits are which, can be seen in the picture.
Asteriornis maastrichtensis does indeed turn out to be a member of the modern birds. Specifically, it is part of Galloanserae, which includes both land fowl(家禽), such as chickens and its relatives, and modern waterfowl, like ducks and the like. The skull of Asteriornis maastrichtensis exhibits features of both groups, so it most probably predates the division between them. And its discovery in Europe opens up the debate about whether modern birds originated in the southern part of the earth, as has been proposed.
As to what it looked like when alive, the animal's left upper leg, its best-preserved bone besides those of its skull, suggests Asteriornis maastrichtensis was a long-legged creature that marched around. This, together with evidence that the rock it was preserved in was originally part of a fossil shoreline, has led to reconstructions of modern waterfowl.
Asteriornis maastrichtensis shows that a single fossil can help to nail down previously uncertain dates. The age of the fossil, in fact, suggests that those previous estimates, based on so-called molecular clocks (分子钟), might have overestimated how early the modern birds arose. Based on the discovery of Asteriornis maastrichtensis, the smart money is now on the modern birds as a group being only a little older than the dinosaur-killing impact itself.
1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs
A. The details of the fossil are still in doubt.
B. The deposits were named after the fossil.
C. The crash caused the extinction of dinosaurs.
D. The fossil is seen as the oldest modern bird bones.
2. What can be inferred about Asteriornis maastrichtensis from the passage
A. It attracts palaeontologists as a rare ancient species.
B. It can present the whole picture of modern waterfowl.
C. It allows researchers to confirm where modern birds emerged.
D. It may be the common ancestor of modern chickens and ducks.
3. According to the passage, the author may agree that .
A. fossils promote the accuracy of historical dates
B. it's not wise to dig the deposits for more remains
C. we can't trust fossils more than molecular clocks
D. more investment should be made to study fossils
答案
1. D 2. D 3. A
Passage 4(2023朝阳一模,C) 主题 自然科学研究 词数 457
Clown fish live their adult lives in the protective arms of sea anemones, the small, brightly colored sea animals attached to rocks to house clown fish. Between birth and adulthood, however, the fish have to complete a treacherous journey. After hatching, they swim out to the open sea to finish developing. After maturing, the young fish swim back, during which they have to avoid a “wall of mouths” by sensing the unfriendly smells. With ocean acidification, a trend that is occurring worldwide, scientists began to wonder what might happen to fish's sense of smell.
My team put 300 recently hatched clown fish in our lab. When we introduced a friendly fish odor (气味), they did not react. But when we introduced an enemy odor, they swam away. We then repeated the experiment with 300 new hatchlings from the same parents in the more acidic water—a level we can expect by the year 2100 if current trends continue. When we introduced friendly and unfriendly smells at the same time, the fish seemed unable to make up their minds, spending equal time swimming toward one smell and the other. They could sense chemical signals but couldn't recognize the meaning of them.
It is always tricky to say that behaviors seen in a lab would also be seen in the wild. So we went to a sandy lake near one of the Great Barrier Reef's northern islands to test how wild-caught damselfish would react to enemy smells after exposing them to acidic water. In a tank, about half of them held in water with acidity expected by 2050 were attracted to the unfriendly odor and half were not, yet not one held in water anticipated by 2100 avoided being attracted to the enemy odor. We then let the marked damselfish loose in the lake. The fish once held in the most acidic water swam farther away from their protective home.
Can fish adapt Most studies have habituated fish to lifted acidic conditions over a few days or months—an extremely short length of time. The animals are not given a realistic opportunity to adapt. Yet some scientists thought that fish might escape the anger of ocean acidification, in part because early research done in the 1980s showed that certain animals had an astonishing ability to regulate their internal chemistry to survive acidified water. But maintaining normal functions such as avoiding danger is a different challenge.
At a minimum, confusion could place yet another stressor on fish already challenged by rising water temperatures, overfishing, etc. Further, if many ocean creatures start to behave strangely, entire food webs and ecosystems could come crashing down. Although the science is still new, the results appear to be lining up: ocean acidification is messing with fish's minds.
1. What does the underlined word “treacherous” in Paragraph 1 probably mean
A. Risky. B. Hurried. C. Mysterious. D. Helpless.
2. What can we learn about the fish in the acidic water
A. They lost their senses to chemical signals.
B. They were less likely to respond to threats.
C. Their behavior in the lab disappeared in the wild.
D. They tended to seek the protection from their home.
3. What can be inferred from the passage
A. The author's study confirms previous findings.
B. Fish's adaptation to acidic water is a matter of time.
C. Different fishes behave differently to acidity change.
D. The chances of restoring fish's minds are yet to be seen.
4. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage
A. What Do Different Stressors Do to Ocean Creatures
B. What Does Ocean Acidity Mean to Ocean Creatures
C. How Does Ocean Acidification Destroy the Ecosystem
D. How Do Ocean Creatures Adapt to Ocean Acidification
答案
1. A 2. B 3. D 4. B
Passage 5(2023东城一模,D) 主题 宇宙探索 词数 429
Arguably, the biggest science development of the year to date has been the images of the very depths of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Those images beg a comparison between the external and internal universes that science is bent on observing and understanding.
Decades ago, astrophysicist Carl Sagan famously said, “The cosmos(宇宙) is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” He was commenting then on the reality that our internal universe was as complex and as fantastic as outer space.
There are many similarities between the progress we've made in understanding the universe and in piecing together life's inner workings. Like the technological developments that took us from Galileo's telescope to the Hubble to the JWST, life science tools have also improved rapidly. From early light microscopes to modern super-resolution ones, these developments have afforded researchers a deep look into biology's infinitesimal (无限小的) landscape. Learning that living things were composed of cells was, not a terribly long time ago, a revolutionary observation. Since then, scientists have been able to dive ever deeper into the components of life.
Going beyond merely observing the complicated makeup of organisms, life scientists can now discover the workings of molecules (分子). And that is where scanning the universe differs from peering into biology. Understanding the universe, especially from a functional standpoint, is not necessarily an immediate urgency. Understanding biology on that level is. Simply observing the amazing internal structure of cells is not enough. Biologists must also characterize how all those parts interact and change in different environments and when faced with various challenges. Being able to image a virus or bacterium is nice at the level of basic science. But knowing how viruses gain entry into cells and spread, infect, and disable can literally save lives. Through time, biology has risen to this mechanistic challenge. Not only can life science tools produce images of cell components, even more importantly, they can also help predict the effects of drugs on receptors, of immune cells on foreign invaders (入侵者), and of genetic perturbations (基因干扰) on development and aging.
This is not to belittle the work of scientists researching into the universe. They should rightly be praised for delivering views of impossibly distant, impossibly massive phenomena. My aim is to celebrate these accomplishments while at the same time recognizing that science's inward search for detail and insight is equally impressive and, in my view, more urgent. The output of both the outward and inward explorations should stimulate wonder in everyone. After all, it's all star-stuff.
1. Why does the author quote Carl Sagan's comment in Paragraph 2
A. To introduce the background. B. To prove an assumption.
C. To make a comparison. D. To present an idea.
2. Like the study of the universe, life science has been advancing in .
A. study approaches B. system management
C. research facilities D. technology integration
3. We can infer from Paragraph 4 that biologists' work is .
A. practical B. risky C. flexible D. popular
4. As for life science, which would the author agree with
A. It has received universal recognition.
B. It should enjoy priority in development.
C. It can be applied in the majority of areas.
D. It is more complicated than space science.
答案
1. D 2. C 3. A 4. B
Passage 6(2022朝阳期末,C) 主题 自然科学研究 词数 405
The return of sea otters(海獭) to Southeast Alaska over the past 50 years, a project funded by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, has been a conservation success story. Erin Foster, a Nearshore Ecology PhD from the Hakai Institute, suggests that sea otter restoration can enhance the genetic diversity of their habitat.
Sea otters reside in coastal habitats, including eelgrass(大叶藻) fields, where they feed on rock crabs, often creating foraging pits (觅食坑) in the eelgrass. Foster looked at the impact of this activity on eelgrass genetic diversity by comparing eelgrass ecosystems with no otters (pre-disturbance) to those where otters had been reintroduced (post-disturbance). It was found that genetic diversity was higher in the areas with otters. Foster argues that genetic richness is of central importance here because it is crucial to resilience (恢复力) and the evolution of clonal organisms. Why The primary mode of expansion for eelgrass is clonal growth, but sea otter digging stimulates sexual reproduction in the flowering plant and opens up areas for the seeds to settle.
Even though disturbance enhances the diversity and dynamics of many of the world's ecosystems, its influence on genetic diversity remains poorly appreciated. The amount of disturbance that was observed in the eelgrass fields was relatively low: about 5% of the seafloor had foraging pits, although the pits last only for a short time, and visual observations likely underestimate the amount of activity. The disturbance theory, presented in 1978 on the basis of evidence from tropical forests and coral reefs, is well known to ecologists. Early studies showed that disturbance could increase species diversity, but researches on the effects of disturbance on genetic diversity are relatively rare.
The role of sea otters in eelgrass fields provides insights into how genetic diversity can change when species interactions are lost—and how these patterns can be restored. Without sea otters, genetic diversity appears to decline; when they return, so does diversity. Sea otters were extirpated from most of their range during intense commercial harvests in the 18th and 19th centuries. As their range expanded in the 1960s and 1970s after the disturbance, and their habitats became better understood, sea otters became a symbolic species in ecology.
The role of sea otters in biogeochemical processes such as the carbon cycle has gained attention in recent years. During the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), more attention should be paid to rebuilding animal populations and the key ecological functions they provide.
1. We can learn from the passage that .
A. eelgrass ecosystems are established by sea otters
B. eelgrass expands through clonal growth due to sea otters
C. the return of sea otters can increase genetic diversity of eelgrass
D. eelgrass plays a more important role in the ecosystem than sea otters
2. What can we infer from Paragraph 3
A. The ecological disturbance theory lacks basic proof.
B. The previous researches on disturbance are insufficient.
C. The necessity of the research on disturbance is doubted.
D. The effects of disturbance on genetic diversity are relatively small.
3. What does the underlined word “extirpated” in Paragraph 4 probably mean
A. Removed. B. Restored. C. Reproduced. D. Relocated.
4. Which of the following would be the best title for this passage
A. The Ecological Function of Eelgrass Fields
B. The Commitment to Ecological Conservation
C. The Strategy for Increasing Sea Otter Population
D. The Benefit of Disturbance on Genetic Diversity
答案
1. C 2. B 3. A 4. D
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