World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking has di...

World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76. He was often called the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein. But his amazing career actually started as a young man who struggled to get around to doing his homework at Oxford University where he studied physics. He then went on to Cambridge to research cosmology, the study of the origin of universe.

When he was 21, Hawking's life hit a big hurdle. He was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. The disease causes the brain to stop sending messages to a person's muscles. At the time, doctors said he would only live for around 2 years, but he proved them very, very wrong.

And with the help of a special wheelchair and speech computer, Hawking spent much of his time researching the beginning of the universe and black holes. His most famous discovery was probably when he demonstrated that black holes emit some radiation, which has since become known as Hawking Radiation. He also spent a lot of time thinking about what existed before the big bang.

Hawking wrote books that explained his big ideas in ways that could be understood by the average person. In 1988 he published A Brief History of Time. It became really popular and sold more than 10 million copies. However, he wasn't just known for his books. He also had a lot of fun becoming a regular on TV screens around the world. He even had a big Hollywood film made about his life.

Throughout his life Stephen Hawking inspired people to look beyond our planet and expand our knowledge of the universe. His family says that he'll be greatly missed and the legacy of his amazing ideas will live on.

1.Why does the author mention Albert Einstein in Paragraph 1?

A. To tell us Hawking was a great physicist.

B. To compare the two famous people.

C. To show he was Hawking's teacher.

D. To identify a special period further.

2.How did Hawking prove the doctor's wrong?

A. He did many experiments.

B. He made some comparisons.

C. He tried to send signals to his muscles.

D. He lived for long like other common people.

3.What was Hawking famous for most?

A. Big bang.

B. Black holes.

C. Radiation from the black holes.

D. A big Hollywood film about the universe.

4.What does Hawking's family think of him?

A. He'll be forgotten soon.

B. His idea of the universe is valuable.

C. He won't be understood completely.

D. He won't be found by others any more.

高二英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析

Stephen Hawking, the most famous physicist of his time, has passed away at the age of 76.

A family spokesman said Hawking, who was British, died peacefully early Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, England. Hawking was known worldwide for working to explain subjects like the beginnings of the universe and the complexities of black holes. He was diagnosed with a disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, at age 21. At the time, doctors predicted he would only live a few years. But he proved them wrong by surviving for more than 50 years more and continuing his scientific work.

In his 2013 book, ''My Brief History'', Hawking wrote about first learning of the illness: ''I felt it was very unfair - why should this happen to me? '' He added: ''At the time, I thought my life was over and that I would never realize the potential I felt I had. '' ''But now, 50 years later, I can be quite satisfied with my life, '' he wrote.

A sign of his being admired came in October 2017, when Cambridge put Hawking's 1966 thesis on the internet for the first time. Demand for the thesis was so high that it caused the university's website to go down.

Hawking said belief in a God who intervenes(介入) in the universe ''to make sure the good guys win or get rewarded in the next life'' was wishful thinking. ''But one can't help asking the question: Why does the universe exist? '' he said in 1991. ''I don't know an operational way to give the question or the answer, if there is one, a meaning. But it bothers me. ''

Hawking was a big supporter of human space travel to the Moon and Mars. He said such missions would help unite humanity in a shared purpose of spreading the human race beyond Earth. ''We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave the Earth, '' he said last year.

1.What is Hawking's attitude towards life when just diagnosed with ALS?

A.Optimistic. B.Hopeless.

C.Disappointed. D.Confident.

2.What bothered Hawking?

A.The beginning of the universe.

B.The intervene of God in the universe.

C.The rewards that good people get in the next life.

D.The crash of the Internet.

3.Why is Hawking in favor of human space travel to other solar systems?

A.Because we have used up all the space.

B.Because we have explored the Moon and Mars for a long time.

C.Because it can help spread the human race beyond Earth.

D.Because it is a way to save the Earth.

4.What can be a suitable title for the text?

A.Stephen Hawking Is Recognized for His Research on Black Holes

B.Stephen Hawking Supports Human Space Travels

C.Stephen Hawking Is a Worldwide Famous Physicist

D.Famous Physicist Stephen Hawking Died at 76

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Stephen Hawking has said he believes brains could exist independently of the body after people die, but that the idea of a conventional afterlife（传统意义上的死后重生）is a fairy tale. Speaking at the premiere（首映）of a documentary film about his life, Stephen Hawking said: “I think the brain is like a program in the mind, which is like a computer, so it’s theoretically possible to copy the brain onto a computer and so provide a form of life after death.”

“However, this is way beyond our present scientific and technological level. I think the conventional afterlife is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.” The author of “A Brief History of Time”, who earlier approved of the right for the deadly ill to end their lives as long as safeguards were in place, suffered from motor neurone(运动神经元) disease at the age of 21 and was given two to three years to live.

“All my life I have lived with the menace of an early death, so I hate wasting time,” Hawking said on Thursday night, using the computer-created voice he controls with a facial muscle and a blink(贬眼) from one eye. The documentary explores a brilliant schoolboy with unclear handwriting who enjoyed the life of Oxford University before illness led to a lifelong desire of discovery about the origins of the universe, which began as a graduate at Cambridge University and has shocked the world.

Hawking’s sister Mary says in the film that her brother was highly competitive and curious about everything in a household which friends described as very academic, and explains how she received a toy house as a present when they were children, to which Stephen immediately added electricity.

She said that life with her brother was attractive and exciting. “It’s a waste of time arguing with Stephen because he always manages to turn the argument round,” she said. The film goes back to his childhood and his student days and shows the scientist, who uses a wheelchair, at home with break. It also explores his family life with his first wife, Jane, and their three children, the breakdown of their marriage and his marriage to one of his carers.

Jane appears on camera to explain how the pressures of caring for the children and the increasingly disabled Hawking became even worse once full-time nurses were brought into the home, destroying any privacy（隐私）. His second wife and former nurse, Elaine Mason, does not appear in the film, and Hawking introduces their 1995-2007 marriage with a few pictures and a brief description.

1.Which statement is most probably agreed with by Hawking?

A. People can become alive again after they die.

B. Brains could exist out of the body.

C. Brains can now be copied onto computers.

D. People are expected to continue living in a certain form after death.

2.To the will of incurable patients to end their lives, Hawking ________.

A. is conditionally agreeable

B. holds a negative attitude

C. shows his deep concern

D. expresses his strong approval

3.What does the underlined word “menace” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A. power　　 B. threat

C. influence　　 D. desire

4.According to Mary, when they were children ________.

A. Hawking gave her a toy house with electricity

B. they never argued with each other

C. she didn’t like living with Hawking because of his competitiveness

D. Hawking showed outstanding talent for physics

5.It can be inferred that ________.

A. Hawking now has to use his wheelchair wherever he goes

B. Hawking’s first wife was once a full-time nurse

C. Jane felt too stressed to continue her marriage with Hawking

D. the film mainly presents Hawking’s student days

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford, England, on January 8, 1942. At the age of 17, he entered University College, Oxford. He wanted to study mathematics, but took up the study of physics when math was unavailable. He received a Ph.D. in physics despite being diagnosed (诊断) with Ameliotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (肌萎缩性脊髓侧索硬化症) while at Oxford in 1963. In 1985 he became ill with pneumonia (肺炎), and since then has required 24-hour nursing. Dr. Hawking’s determination, along with the help of his family and associates, has allowed him to continue to work. In 1970 he began studying black holes. His research led him to predict that black holes send out radiation in the X-ray to gamma-ray(伽马射线) range of the spectrum (光谱). In the 1980s he returned to an earlier interest, the origins of the universe. He has co-authored many publications, such as 300 Years of Gravity and The Large Scale Structure of Space time. Dr. Hawking has also written books such as A Brief History of Time, Black Holes and Baby Universes and other Essays, The Universe in a Nutshell and others. He continues to give lectures, despite having been unable to speak since 1985, with the aid of a speech synthesizer (合成器) and a portable computer. He currently holds Isaac Newton’s chair as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University in England.

1.Hawking went to University College, Oxford, in order to _____.

A. get a Ph.D. in physics

B. study mathematics

C. study the universe and black holes

D. seek help from the Lucasian Professor

2.Before Hawking started researching black holes, _____.

3.Which of the following books was NOT written by Dr. Hawking alone?

4.When did Hawking enter University College, Oxford?

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Stephen Hawking believes that the earth is unlikely to be the only planet ________ life has developed gradually.

A. whose           B. where           C. which           D. what

高二英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析

Michael Herr, who has died aged 76, was the author of Dispatches (1977), the best book about the Vietnam War. It took Herr eight years to write Dispatches, in part because he went home from Saigon with a bad case of stress disorder. He had gone to Vietnam as a journalist for Esquire magazine. An American general asked him whether he was there to write about military fashion and humor. No. He wrote little for Esquire, but took advantage of the US government’s decision to allow journalists extraordinary access to go to war with the soldiers. He shared their discomforts and their fears, witnessed their death and recorded their language.

His own language, a stream of consciousness pulsing with energy, but masterfully controlled, captured the fear and the horror, but also the excitement, of the war in the jungle and paddy fields. He recorded with a connoisseur’s expertise (行家专长) such details as the many ways in which soldiers would wish each other good luck, and the degrees of madness that were considered acceptable.

The power of the book, perhaps, comes from Herr’s insistence on describing the war, or more precisely his own responses to it, rather than protesting against it. It also comes from the ceaseless accompaniment of two elements, drugs and music — more particularly rock music, and especially the music of Jimi Hendrix. Herr himself spent drug-fuelled weekends in a flat in Saigon, staring at an ancient French map of Indochina. He met soldiers with a left pocket full of Dexedrine, the “upper” (兴奋剂) officially administered by the army to get them into battle, and a right pocket full of “downers” (镇定剂) to get them through it.

Dispatches did not come out until 1977, when the country was beginning to have its mind on other problems, but it did more, perhaps, than any other book to freeze an image of despair and a sense of waste about the war, rather as the trench poets of 1914 —1918 did in Britain.

Herr also made vital contributions to two of the most influential Vietnam films Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. His work, in the book and the two films, has been seen as part of the process whereby the US came to see itself and its history no longer merely through traditional literature, but in sounds and images.

1.Why did Michael Herr go to Vietnam during the war years?

A. To join the soldiers in military actions.

B. To report military actions and advances.

C. To give an authentic account of the war.

D. To write about military fashion and humor.

2.Which of the following about Dispatches is true?

A. It truly reflects Herr’s responses to the war.

B. Music and drugs give the author inspiration.

C. Its language is casually selected and organized.

D. It fully describes Herr’s protest against the war.

3.US soldiers brought drugs with them during the war most probably because 　　　　　　　 .

A. they suffered stress disorder

B. they were addicted to drugs

C. they used them to cure the wounds

D. they exchanged them for music records

4.What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A. Herr directed two influential Vietnam films.

B. Herr’s work played a positive role in traditional literature.

C. Herr stopped writing after the book Dispatches was published.

D. Herr’s work offered Americans more ways to know themselves.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Stephen Hawking, the brilliant British theoretical physicist who published wildly popular books exploring the mysteries of the universe, has died, according to a family spokesman. He was 76.

Considered by many to be the world’s greatest living scientist, Hawking was also a cosmologist, astronomer, mathematician and author of numerous books including the landmark “A Brief History of Time,” which has sold more than 10 million copies.

With fellow physicist Roger Penrose, Hawking combined Einstein’s theory of relativity with quantum theory(量子理论) to suggest that space and time would begin with the Big Bang and end in black holes. He also discovered that black holes were not completely black but emit(释放) radiation and would likely eventually evaporate(蒸发) and disappear. “It will be difficult enough to avoid disasters on planet Earth in the next 100 years, let alone next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket or on one plant. Let’s hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.”

Hawking suffered from ALS (amyotrophic latcral sclerosis), a disease which is usually fatal within a few years. He was diagnosed in 1963, when he was 21, and doctors initially gave him only a few years to live. The disease left Hawking wheelchair-bound and paralyzed. He was able to move only a few fingers on one hand and was completely dependent on others or on technology for everything—bathing, dressing, eating, even speech. “I have been lucky that my condition has progressed more slowly than is often the case. But it shows that one need not lose hope.” Dramatically, he even guest-starred in the “Star Trek”, “The Simpsons” and the 2014 movie “The theory of Everything”.

Hawking leaves behind three children and three grandchildren. “We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today,” Hawking’s children, Lucy, Robert and Tim, said in a statement. “He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humor inspired people across the world. “We will miss him forever.”

1.From the passage, we can learn that ________.

A. Hawking was diagnosed with the fatal disease since he was born.

B. Hawking was once the main character in the movie and TV series.

C. Hawking just published one book titled “A Brief History of Time”

D. Hawking had to rely on other people and technology to do everything in life.

2.Which of the following is NOT believed by Stephen Hawking?

A. The space and time would end in black holes.

B. Black holes are not exactly black in color.

C. The disasters can be avoided in the next thousand or million years.

D. Black holes can give off radiation and will disappear in the end.

3.What does the underlined sentence mean?

A. The humans should explore other planets to live.

B. The humans should stay together to fight the disasters.

C. The earth will be destroyed if humans continue to live here

D. No other planets can replace the earth as the living place.

4.What would be the best title of the passage?

A. A Star Just Went Out in the Cosmos

B. The Achievements of Stephen Hawking

C. Stephen Hawking’s Suffering of the Disease

D. The Predictions of the Great Man

高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析

London (CNN) There is no God -- that's the conclusion of the celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking, whose final book is published Tuesday. The book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, which was completed by his family after his death, presents answers to the questions that Hawking said he received most during his time on Earth.

Other bombshells the British scientist left his readers with include the belief that alien life is out there, artificial intelligence could outsmart humans and time travel can't be ruled out.

"There is no God. No one directs the universe," he writes in the book."For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse by God," he adds. "I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature."

While Hawking spoke of his lack of belief in God during his life, several of his other answers are more surprising."There are forms of intelligent life out there," he writes. "We need to be cautious about answering back until we have developed a bit further."

"Travel back in time can't be ruled out according to our present understanding," he says. He also predicts that "within the next hundred years we will be able to travel to anywhere in the Solar System."

In remarks prepared by Hawking and played at the launch of the book in London on Monday, the scientist also turned his attention to the world he was leaving behind. His greatest concern, his daughter said, "is how divided we've become," adding ,"He makes this comment about how we seem to have lost the ability to look outward, and we are increasingly looking inward to ourselves."

Hawking's final message to readers, though, is a hopeful one. Attempting to answer the question "How do we shape the future?", the scientist writes, "Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet."

1.Which question is NOT probably included in the book Brief Answers to the Big Questions,?

A. Is there Alien life?　　 B. Does the solar system exist?

C. Is time travel possible?　　 D. Does anyone direct the universe?

2.Hawking mentioned his disability in his book to________.

A. show his confidence.　　 B. complain of God.

C. tell readers about his hardship.　　 D. support his disbelief in God.

3.What was Hawking most concerned about?

A. Artificial intelligence will outsmart humans.　　 B. Allen life will come to the earth some day.

C. Technology will destroy the world.　　 D. Human beings are not united.

4.What did Hawking suggest human beings do?

A. Contact alien life.　　 B. Explore the universe.

C. Develop the earth.　　 D. Respect artificial intelligence.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Stephen Hawking, who tried 1.(explain) some of the most complicated questions of life while himself working under the shadow of a poor physical condition, has died at the age of 76.

He died2.(peace) at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of Wednesday. The UK’s Press Association reported his 3.(die), citing (引用) a spokesman for the family.

“Mr. Hawking and his contribution will be remembered forever, ” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Wednesday. “He was an outstanding scientist and a fighter who struggled against the disease and contributed greatly 4.mankind’s understanding of science”.

5.(bear) in Oxford, England on 8 January, 1942, the British theoretical physicist 6.(know) for his groundbreaking work with black holes and relativity, and was the author of several popular science books, 7.(include) A Brief History of Time.

His 8.(child), Lucy, Robert and Tim, said: “We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. He was a great scientist and 9.extraordinary man, 10.work and legacy(遗产)will live on for many years.” They praised his courage and persistence and said his talent and humor inspired people across the world.

高二英语语法填空中等难度题查看答案及解析

London (CNN) There is no God -- that's the conclusion of the well-known physicist Stephen Hawking, whose final book is published on Tuesday. The book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, which was completed by his family after his death, presents answers to the questions that Hawking said he received most during his time on Earth.

Other bombshells(爆炸性事件)the British scientist left his readers with include the belief that alien life is out there, artificial intelligence could outsmart humans and time travel can't be impossible.

"There is no God. No one directs the universe," he writes in the book." For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse by God," he adds. "I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature."

While Hawking spoke of his lack of belief in God during his life, several of his other answers are more surprising. "There are forms of intelligent life out there," he writes. "We need to be cautious about answering back until we have developed a bit further."

"Travel back in time can't be ruled out according to our present understanding," he says. He also predicts that "within the next hundred years we will be able to travel to anywhere in the Solar System."

In remarks prepared by Hawking and played at the launch of the book in London on Monday, the scientist also turned his attention to the world he was leaving behind. His greatest concern, his daughter said, "is how divided we've become," adding ,"He makes this comment about how we seem to have lost the ability to look outward, and we are increasingly looking inward to ourselves."

Hawking's final message to readers, though, is a hopeful one. Attempting to answer the question "How do we shape the future?", the scientist writes, "Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet."

1.Which question is NOT probably included in the book Brief Answers to the Big Questions,?

A. Is there alien life?　　 B. Does anyone direct the universe?

C. Is time travel possible?　　 D. Does the solar system exist?

2.Hawking mentioned his disability in his book to________.

A. show his confidence.　　 B. support his disbelief in God.

C. tell readers about his hardship.　　 D. complain of God

3.What was Hawking most concerned about?

A. Artificial intelligence will outsmart humans.

B. Human beings are not united.

C. Technology will destroy the world.

D. Allen life will come to the earth some day.

4.What did Hawking suggest human beings do?

A. Contact alien life.　　 B. Respect artificial intelligence.

C. Develop the earth.　　 D. Explore the universe.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析