Grab an ice cube from the freezer and place it on a table. Watch closely enough and you will see, well, not much at all. The ice cube is absorbing heat, but it is still an ice cube. Before it melts, it will draw heat from the environment to change from solid to liquid. Only then will it begin to slip and slide in a puddle of its own making.
And so to A World Without Ice by Henry Pollack, retired professor of geophysics at the University of Michigan and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shared the 2007 Nobel peace prize with AI Gore.
The book gets off to a slow start. You may have to work a little before being rewarded. But given time. Pollack’s account warms up and really takes off. The story he has to tell is fascinating, frightening and important.
Despite the title, this is not a book about the world without ice. Much is given over to the impact of ice in Earth’s long history, as an important force that shaped our planet’s landscape, controlled migrations and influenced cultures. Pollack takes us through Antarctic and Arctic explorations, the natural cycles that bring us ice ages and milder periods without extremes of heat or cold and the rise of climate science which, among other achievements, can recreate a history of the temperature on Earth from kilometers of ice core drilled from the polar caps.
Pollack’s intellectual power and clarity of phrase are invaluable in describing the scientific evidence for global warming, the ways in which it will affect the world, and the all-too-probable consequences. Pollack is not one to brush awkward issues under the carpel. There is serious discussion about uncertainties in climate science, and in particular the computer models used to forecast future warming. For its forensic analysis (取证分析) and strong destruction of climate sceptic (怀疑论者) arguments alone, A World Without Ice is worth keeping on a nearby shelf.
Some readers may hind Pollack’s US-centric approach occasionally grating (刺耳的). He tells of intense irrigation in southwestern Kansas, IPCC reports as big as several New York City phone directories and school-day stories from Omaha. But this is forgivable. The US is uniquely placed to act on climate change but faces a significant barrier in the shape of the outdated. influential, oil-funded anti-climate change lobby (游说议员的团体).
Thoughtful throughout, Pollack occasionally delivers paragraphs that stay with you long after closing the book. On the subject of the book itself, he writes: “Nature’s best thermometer (温度计), perhaps its most sensitive and unambiguous indicator of climate change, is ice, When ice gets sufficiently warm, it melts. Ice asks no questions, presents no arguments, reads no newspapers, listens to no debates. It is not burdened by ideology and carries no political baggage as it crosses the threshold (门槛) from solid to liquid. It just melts.”
A World Without Ice is a call to arms. Debates about which mitigation (减缓) strategies might give us the best chances of reducing our emissions miss the point, Pollack says. If we want to avoid the worst that climate change may bring, we need “every horse in the stable pulling together, and as hard and as fast as possible”.
Pollack’s argument is attractive, persuasive and deeply upsetting, no matter the climate change tiredness that unavoidably sets in as a consequence of endless media coverage of global warming. The author’s final warning comes from Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher: “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
Pollack leaves us in no doubt as to where that is.
1.A World Without Ice mainly focuses on_______.
A.the adventures to the freezing Poles
B.the impact of ice on human and nature
C.the role of climate science in drilling ice
D.the process of ice cube turning into water
2.We can learn that A World Without Ice________.
A.brings us to the core of the issue at the very beginning
B.convinces sceptics of the truth about climate change
C.gives an in-depth analysis of global warming
D.gets funded by anti-climate change lobby
3.Why does Henry Pollack think ice is nature’s best thermometer?
A.Ice is a reminder of peaceful co-existence.
B.Ice is a common topic of the media coverage.
C.Ice is a controversial issue in political debates.
D.Ice is a clear indicator sensitive to climate change.
4.The underlined sentence in Paragraph 8 probably means the book＿____.
A.urges us to make joint efforts to fight climate change
B.advocates addressing climate change by armed forces
C.recommends debating on strategies to reduce emission
D.calls for separate and tough actions in a timely manner
5.What does the underlined word that in the last paragraph refer to?
A.Warning from Lao Tzu. B.Destination of a journey.
C.Effect of global warming. D.Argument on climate change.
6.What is the author’s attitude to A World Without Ice?
A.Ambiguous. B.Cautious. C.Positive. D.Skeptical.
高三英语阅读理解困难题
Grab an ice cube from the freezer and place it on a table. Watch closely enough and you will see, well, not much at all. The ice cube is absorbing heat, but it is still an ice cube. Before it melts, it will draw heat from the environment to change from solid to liquid. Only then will it begin to slip and slide in a puddle of its own making.
And so to A World Without Ice by Henry Pollack, retired professor of geophysics at the University of Michigan and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shared the 2007 Nobel peace prize with AI Gore.
The book gets off to a slow start. You may have to work a little before being rewarded. But given time. Pollack’s account warms up and really takes off. The story he has to tell is fascinating, frightening and important.
Despite the title, this is not a book about the world without ice. Much is given over to the impact of ice in Earth’s long history, as an important force that shaped our planet’s landscape, controlled migrations and influenced cultures. Pollack takes us through Antarctic and Arctic explorations, the natural cycles that bring us ice ages and milder periods without extremes of heat or cold and the rise of climate science which, among other achievements, can recreate a history of the temperature on Earth from kilometers of ice core drilled from the polar caps.
Pollack’s intellectual power and clarity of phrase are invaluable in describing the scientific evidence for global warming, the ways in which it will affect the world, and the all-too-probable consequences. Pollack is not one to brush awkward issues under the carpel. There is serious discussion about uncertainties in climate science, and in particular the computer models used to forecast future warming. For its forensic analysis (取证分析) and strong destruction of climate sceptic (怀疑论者) arguments alone, A World Without Ice is worth keeping on a nearby shelf.
Some readers may hind Pollack’s US-centric approach occasionally grating (刺耳的). He tells of intense irrigation in southwestern Kansas, IPCC reports as big as several New York City phone directories and school-day stories from Omaha. But this is forgivable. The US is uniquely placed to act on climate change but faces a significant barrier in the shape of the outdated. influential, oil-funded anti-climate change lobby (游说议员的团体).
Thoughtful throughout, Pollack occasionally delivers paragraphs that stay with you long after closing the book. On the subject of the book itself, he writes: “Nature’s best thermometer (温度计), perhaps its most sensitive and unambiguous indicator of climate change, is ice, When ice gets sufficiently warm, it melts. Ice asks no questions, presents no arguments, reads no newspapers, listens to no debates. It is not burdened by ideology and carries no political baggage as it crosses the threshold (门槛) from solid to liquid. It just melts.”
A World Without Ice is a call to arms. Debates about which mitigation (减缓) strategies might give us the best chances of reducing our emissions miss the point, Pollack says. If we want to avoid the worst that climate change may bring, we need “every horse in the stable pulling together, and as hard and as fast as possible”.
Pollack’s argument is attractive, persuasive and deeply upsetting, no matter the climate change tiredness that unavoidably sets in as a consequence of endless media coverage of global warming. The author’s final warning comes from Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher: “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
Pollack leaves us in no doubt as to where that is.
1.A World Without Ice mainly focuses on_______.
A.the adventures to the freezing Poles
B.the impact of ice on human and nature
C.the role of climate science in drilling ice
D.the process of ice cube turning into water
2.We can learn that A World Without Ice________.
A.brings us to the core of the issue at the very beginning
B.convinces sceptics of the truth about climate change
C.gives an in-depth analysis of global warming
D.gets funded by anti-climate change lobby
3.Why does Henry Pollack think ice is nature’s best thermometer?
A.Ice is a reminder of peaceful co-existence.
B.Ice is a common topic of the media coverage.
C.Ice is a controversial issue in political debates.
D.Ice is a clear indicator sensitive to climate change.
4.The underlined sentence in Paragraph 8 probably means the book＿____.
A.urges us to make joint efforts to fight climate change
B.advocates addressing climate change by armed forces
C.recommends debating on strategies to reduce emission
D.calls for separate and tough actions in a timely manner
5.What does the underlined word that in the last paragraph refer to?
A.Warning from Lao Tzu. B.Destination of a journey.
C.Effect of global warming. D.Argument on climate change.
6.What is the author’s attitude to A World Without Ice?
A.Ambiguous. B.Cautious. C.Positive. D.Skeptical.
高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
When an ice cube melts, it creates a puddle (水坑). When an ice sheet (冰盖)melts, it raises sea levels. It sounds simple, but scientists have debated for decades whether both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets actually were shrinking, and how much that melting contributed to rising sea levels.
Now, a new study has provided the best evidence of how the polar ice sheets are responding to our warming world. In the study, an international team of scientists looked at 20 years of' data in the ice sheets collected by 10 satellite missions. The team's conclusion: The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets both are losing ice overall. The researchers also found that between 1992 and 2011, melt water from those shrinking ice sheets caused sea levels to rise by about 11 millimeters.
Over the 19 years studied, the Greenland ice sheet lost 2.7 trillion metric tons of ice. The Antarctic ice sheet also shrank by about l.3 trillion metric tons. Previously, some scientists disagreed whether the Antarctic sheet, the largest mass of ice in the world, was shrinking or growing or neither.
While the Earth is warming overall, the effect of climate change varies from region to region. Over the last 15 years, for example, scientists have something disagreed over how climate change has affected the polar ice sheets. Many studies found that the sheets lost a lot of ice and that not enough snow fell on the sheets to compensate for the loss. But other studies found that the loss of ice was balanced by the gain in snowfall.
Richard Alley, a glacier scientist at Penn State University, said that many of those studies looked at different areas, and over different time periods. In addition, the studies didn't all use the satellite data in the same way. Those differences made, it difficult to compare the results.
The data in the new study matched time periods and areas. The study also combined measurements from kinds of satellites.
1.Why does the author use a common-sense phenomenon as the beginning?
A. To present the reason for ice sheet melting.
B. To show us the result of a scientific experiment.
C. To give a simple example to introduce the topic.
D. To present a common daily finding obvious to the readers.
2.The researchers reached their conclusion by_____.
A. analyzing the findings of former studies
B. observing the Antarctic and Greenland
C. referring to the data from satellites
D. making measurements in the Antarctic and Greenland
3.What does the underlined phrase "compensate for" in paragraph 4 refer to?
A．Cut down.
B．Lead to．
C．Bring about.
D．Make up for.
4.Which of the following might be the best conclusion for the passage?
A. Ice sheets are shrinking due to global warming.
B. People are suffering from climate change.
C. Rising sea levels makes people live in danger.
D. Shrinking ice has nothing to do with sea levels.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
The host poured the tea into the cup and placed it on the small table in front of his guests, who were a father and daughter, and put the cover on the cup. Apparently thinking of something, he hurried into the inner room, leaving the thermos (热水瓶) on the table. His two guests heard a cupboard opening.
They remained sitting in the sitting room, the ten-year-old daughter looking at the flowers outside the window, the father just about to take his cup, when the crash came, right there in the sitting room. Something was hopelessly broken.
It was the thermos, which had fallen to the floor. The girl looked over her shoulder, shocked, staring. It was mysterious. Neither of them had touched it, not even a bit. True, it hadn't stood steadily when their host placed it on the table, but it hadn't fallen then.
The explosion caused the host to rush back. Gawking at the steaming floor, the host said "It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter!"
The father started to say something. Then he said softly, "Sorry, I touched it and it fell."
"It doesn't matter," the host said.
When they left the house, the daughter said, "Daddy, did you touch it?"
"No. But it stood so close to me. "
"But you didn't touch it. I saw your reflection in the window glass. "
The father laughed. "What then would you give as the cause of its fall?"
"The thermos fell by itself. The floor is not smooth. Daddy, why did you say that you …"
"That won't do, girl. It sounds more acceptable when I say I knocked it down. There are things which people accept less the more you defend them. The truer the story you tell, the less true it sounds. "
The daughter was lost in silence for a while. Then she said, "Can you explain it only in this way?"
"Only in this way," her father said.
56. Which statement is a possible theme of this story?
A. People rarely tell the truth.
B. You can't always make people believe the truth.
C. If you defend yourself, people will believe you.
D. People should take the blame for what they didn't do.
57. It can be inferred from the story that the father _______.
A. didn't know the host well B. felt satisfied that he didn't tell the truth
C. was sorry that he told the truth D. didn't think the host would believe the truth
58. From the story we know that the daughter ________.
A. thought her father should tell the truth B. didn't know why the thermos fell
C. knocked over the thermos D. strongly objected to her father's explanation
59. The underlined "gawking at" probably means _______.
A. staring at with anger B. looking at curiously
C. glancing at hopelessly D. looking at in a dull way
高三英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析
It is known that the weight of an object ________ from place to place on the earth.
| A．exchanges | B．varies |
| C．translates | D．ranges |
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
With these words, he ______a wide-mouth jar from his pocket and set it on the table in front of him.
A. pulled out B. checked out C. stuck out D. dropped out
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
Many public figures from IT, show business, and sports have joined the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise money for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (肌萎缩性侧索硬化) research. A number of international famous people have already taken the challenge, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, and Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook. Troubled musician Justin Bieber even challenged US President Barrack Obama.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge requires that participants pour a bucket of ice water on themselves and then post a video of it on social media while nominating one or more people to do the same within 24 hours. People who fail to take the challenge will have to donate $100 to The ALS Association, which advocates finding treatment and a cure for ALS. And many of those who’ve taken the challenge donated as well.
ALS is a rare disease that gradually reduces patients’ muscle strength, finally making them become unable to speak, move, swallow and breathe. In North America, ALS is commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, after the star baseball player who died of the disease in 1941 at the age of 38. The best-known ALS patient today is British scientist Stephen Hawking. While most people with ALS survive only two to five years after diagnosis(诊断), Hawking has had the disease for decades. The medical treatment for ALS is very expensive and cannot be covered by most social welfare programs. This creates difficulties for many ALS patients and their families, both physically and mentally.
“Due to the ice bucket campaign, many people beginning to know about ALS. With more people aware and more people taking part in the fight against ALS, we can calmly work with not only other ALS organizations, but also with medical companies to speed up new treatments for people affected by the disease,” said Barbara Newhouse, President and CEO of The ALS Association.
1.Why does the author mention many famous people in Paragraph 1?
A. To stress the popularity of the Ice Bucket Challenge.
B. To advise us to learn from them.
C. To prove they are generous.
D. To introduce the target group of the Ice Bucket Challenge.
2.Paragraph 2 is mainly about the Ice Bucket challenge’s ________.
A. influence B. purpose
C. rules D. development
3.The person who is nominated for the challenge is required to ________.
A. donate $100 to The ALS Association
B. watch others videos on social media
C. help find effective treatments for ALS
D. pour ice water on himself within time
4.What do we know about ALS from the text?
A. ALS is fairly common now.
B. Lou Gehrig was first cured of ALS.
C. It is rare for people with ALS to survive decades.
D. Social welfare programs provide medical treatments for ALS.
5.According to Barbara Newhouse, the Ice Bucket Challenge ________.
A. makes more people well aware of ALS
B. teaches people how to fight against ALS
C. makes medical companies help ALS patients
D. attracts many people to join ALS organizations
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Where do you keep ice? In die freezer, of course. That's what scientists might have thought when they were looking for a safe place to store ice from mountain glaciers from around the world. They’ve decided to store ice in Antarctica because global warming is causing some of the glaciers in places like the Alps to melt.
Jerome Chappellaz of the French National Centre for Scientific Research is involved in creating an ice vault (地下室）there. He says: “We are probably the only scientific community whose sample (样本) is in danger of disappearing from the face of the planet. If you work on rocks or on tree rings, the raw material is still here and will be for many centuries."
And why do scientists need to study ice from the Alps, for example? Ice formed on the top of a mountain is made of snow accumulated over thousands of years. Trapped air bubbles (气泡) contain samples of the atmosphere that existed when that ice was formed. Ice is a record of climate By examining ice. we know carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher now than in the last three million years. Researchers use this kind of data to build computer models and try to predict what might happen in the future.
The ice vault will be housed in a snow cave at the Concordia Research Station, which is operated by scientists from France and Italy. The ice samples will be sealed in bags and placed 10 meters below the surface. at a constant temperature of -50*C. This will put the scientists’ minds at rest. Losing the ice samples would be a disaster, and nobody wants to see a mine of scientific knowledge lost forever in a giant pool.
1.What makes Antarctica a safe place to store ice?
A. Its large mountains.
B. Its function as a freezer.
C. The abundant ice samples there.
D. The absence of global warming.
2.Jerome compares ice with rocks and tree rings to state that_ .
A. it's necessary to store ice
B. it’s more valuable to study ice
C. ice disappears very quickly
D. ice should be stored at home
3.What is the researchers' purpose of studying ice?
A. To learn about climate.
B. To learn about the Alps.
C. To trap air bubbles.
D. To reduce carbon dioxide.
4.What do scientists think of storing ice in Antarctica?
A. They consider it an easy job.
B. They’re not optimistic about it.
C. They think it will cause disasters.
D. They think it’s a reliable way.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Last night my husband and I were on the way to a show. We were both hungry and wanted to grab a quick bite on our way there, so we swung through a Jack-In-the-Box-Drive-thru Restaurant and placed our order.
When we got up to the window the lady smiled at me, which is sometimes rare and asked how I was doing while she was collecting our money for the food. I replied, "Fine, and how are you'?" She went to get our order ready and I asked my husband to pass my "Drive-thru Smile bag" to me. He handed it to me and watched in amazement as I gathered together a "You make a difference" paper, including a smile card, a smile stamp and a smile button.
She came back to the window almost before I finished putting it all together. Without looking too closely she passed the bag and said, "Thank you. Have a good day." I said, "Wait! This is for you." As I placed the little smile gifts in her hand a smile spread across her face. As she looked at the items it got a little bigger but when I thanked her for her smile there was no holding back. She gave the biggest smile and she was laughing. It was very heartwarming.
My husband was very impressed by it. It made him smile too. It just takes a little effort to connect in a human way to everyone we have dealings with, even with something as small as a Drive-thru transaction.
Remember, we all make a difference!
1.All the followings are included in my "You make a difference" paper EXCEPT ________.
A. a smile card B. a smile stamp
C. a smile button D. a smile bag
2.The lady became happy because she received ________.
A. some food B. some kindness C. some money D. some help
3.What may be the best title for the text?
A. Jack-In-the-Box-Drive-thru Restaurant
B. Biggest Drive-thru Smile Ever
C. You Make a Difference through Effort
D. Don't hold back Your Smile
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
— Do you like your new place?
— Yes,I do.But it's a little far from my college,and the traffic____________me.
A.killed B.has killed C.had killed D.is killing
高三英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析
At the beginning of a speech, it is very important to grab the audience’s attention and make them interested in ______ you have to say.
A. which B. what C. that D. who
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析