Which is sillier: denying we ever went to the moon or trying to convince the true nonbelievers?
Once upon a time – July 20, 1969, to be specific – two men got out of their little spaceship and wandered around on the moon for a while. Ten more men walked on the moon over the next three and a half years. The end.
Unfortunately, not quite. A fair number of Americans think that this whole business of moon landings really is a fairy tale. They believe that the landings were a big hoax (骗局) staged in the Mojave Desert, to convince everyone that U.S. technology was the “bestest” in the whole wide world.
Which is the harder thing to do: Send men to the moon or make believe we did? The fact is the physics behind sending people to the moon is simple. You can do it with computers whose entire memory capacities can now fit on chips the size of postage stamps and that cost about as much as, well, a postage stamp. I know you can because we did.
However, last fall NASA considered spending $15,000 on a public-relations campaign to convince the unimpressed that Americans had in fact gone to the moon. That idea was mostly a reaction to a Fox television program, first aired in February 2001, that claimed to expose the hoax. The show’s creator is a publicity hound (猎狗) who has lived up to the name in more ways than one by hounding Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. Mr. X (as I will call him, thereby denying him the joyous sight of his name in print) recently followed Buzz Aldrin around and called him “a thief, liar and coward” until the 72-year-old astronaut finally lost it and hit the 37-year-old Mr. X in the face.
Anyway, NASA’s publicity campaign began to slow down. The nonbelievers took the campaign as NASA’s effort to hide something while the believers said that $15,000 to convince people that the world was round — I mean, that we had gone to the moon — was simply a waste of money. (Actually, the $15,000 was supposed to pay for an article by James E. Oberg, an astronomy writer who, with Aldrin, has contributed to Scientific American.)
If NASA’s not paying Oberg, perhaps it could put the money to good use by hiring two big guys to drag Neil Armstrong out of the house. Armstrong is an extremely private man, but he is also the first man on the moon, so maybe he has a duty to be a bit more outspoken about the experience. Or NASA could just buy Aldrin a commemorate plaque (纪念匾) for his recent touch on the face of Mr. X.
1.We can learn from Paragraphs 2 and 3 that some Americans believe _______.
A.moon landings were invented
B.U.S. technology was the best
C.moon landing ended successfully
D.the Mojave Desert was the launching base
2.According to the writer, which of the following is to blame for the story about the hoax?
A.NASA’s publicity campaign. B.The Fox television program.
C.Buzz Aldrin. D.James E. Oberg.
3.According to the writer, Mr. X _______.
A.told a faithful story B.was not treated properly
C.was a talented creator D.had a bad reputation
4.The believers think that NASA’s publicity campaign is ________.
A.proof to hide the truth
B.stupid and unnecessary
C.needed to convince the non-believers
D.important to develop space technology
5.The tone of the article is _______.
A.angry B.conversational C.humorous D.matter-of-fact
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题
Which is sillier: denying we ever went to the moon or trying to convince the true nonbelievers?
Once upon a time – July 20, 1969, to be specific – two men got out of their little spaceship and wandered around on the moon for a while. Ten more men walked on the moon over the next three and a half years. The end.
Unfortunately, not quite. A fair number of Americans think that this whole business of moon landings really is a fairy tale. They believe that the landings were a big hoax (骗局) staged in the Mojave Desert, to convince everyone that U.S. technology was the “bestest” in the whole wide world.
Which is the harder thing to do: Send men to the moon or make believe we did? The fact is the physics behind sending people to the moon is simple. You can do it with computers whose entire memory capacities can now fit on chips the size of postage stamps and that cost about as much as, well, a postage stamp. I know you can because we did.
However, last fall NASA considered spending $15,000 on a public-relations campaign to convince the unimpressed that Americans had in fact gone to the moon. That idea was mostly a reaction to a Fox television program, first aired in February 2001, that claimed to expose the hoax. The show’s creator is a publicity hound (猎狗) who has lived up to the name in more ways than one by hounding Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. Mr. X (as I will call him, thereby denying him the joyous sight of his name in print) recently followed Buzz Aldrin around and called him “a thief, liar and coward” until the 72-year-old astronaut finally lost it and hit the 37-year-old Mr. X in the face.
Anyway, NASA’s publicity campaign began to slow down. The nonbelievers took the campaign as NASA’s effort to hide something while the believers said that $15,000 to convince people that the world was round — I mean, that we had gone to the moon — was simply a waste of money. (Actually, the $15,000 was supposed to pay for an article by James E. Oberg, an astronomy writer who, with Aldrin, has contributed to Scientific American.)
If NASA’s not paying Oberg, perhaps it could put the money to good use by hiring two big guys to drag Neil Armstrong out of the house. Armstrong is an extremely private man, but he is also the first man on the moon, so maybe he has a duty to be a bit more outspoken about the experience. Or NASA could just buy Aldrin a commemorate plaque (纪念匾) for his recent touch on the face of Mr. X.
1.We can learn from Paragraphs 2 and 3 that some Americans believe _______.
A.moon landings were invented
B.U.S. technology was the best
C.moon landing ended successfully
D.the Mojave Desert was the launching base
2.According to the writer, which of the following is to blame for the story about the hoax?
A.NASA’s publicity campaign. B.The Fox television program.
C.Buzz Aldrin. D.James E. Oberg.
3.According to the writer, Mr. X _______.
A.told a faithful story B.was not treated properly
C.was a talented creator D.had a bad reputation
4.The believers think that NASA’s publicity campaign is ________.
A.proof to hide the truth
B.stupid and unnecessary
C.needed to convince the non-believers
D.important to develop space technology
5.The tone of the article is _______.
A.angry B.conversational C.humorous D.matter-of-fact
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Which is sillier: denying we ever went to the moon or trying to convince the true non-believers?
Once upon a time—July 20, 1969, to be specific – two men got out of their little spaceship and wandered around on the moon for a while. Ten more men walked on the moon over the next three and a half years. The end.
Unfortunately, not quite. A fair number of Americans think that this whole business of moon landings really is a fairy tale. They believe that the landings were a big hoax (骗局) staged in the Mojave Desert, to convince everyone that U.S. technology was the “best” in the whole wide world.
Which is the harder thing to do: Send men to the moon or make believe we did? The fact is that the physics behind sending people to the moon is simple. You can do it with computers whose entire memory capacities can now fit on chips the size of postage stamps and that cost about as much as, well, a postage stamp. I know you can because we did.
However, last fall NASA considered spending $15,000 on a public-relations campaign to convince the unimpressed that Americans had in fact gone to the moon. That idea was mostly a reaction to a Fox television program, first aired in February 2001, that claimed to expose the hoax. The show’s creator is a publicity hound (猎狗) who has lived up to the name in more ways than one by hounding Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. Mr. X (as I will call him, thereby denying him the joyous sight of his name in print) recently followed Buzz Aldrin around and called him “a thief, liar and coward” until the 72-year-old astronaut finally lost it and hit the 37-year-old Mr. X in the face.
Anyway, NASA’s publicity campaign began to slow down. The nonbelievers took the campaign as NASA’s effort to hide something while the believers said that $15,000 to convince people that the world was round — I mean, that we had gone to the moon — was simply a waste of money. (Actually, the $15,000 was supposed to pay for an article by James E. Oberg, an astronomy writer who, with Aldrin, has contributed to Scientific American.)
If NASA’s not paying Oberg, perhaps it could put the money to good use by hiring two big guys to drag Neil Armstrong out of the house. Armstrong is an extremely private man, but he is also the first man on the moon, so maybe he has a duty to be a bit more outspoken about the experience. Or NASA could just buy Aldrin a commemorate plaque (纪念匾) for his recent touch on the face of Mr. X.
1.We can learn from Paragraphs 2 and 3 that some Americans believe _______.
A.moon landings were invented
B.U.S. technology was the best
C.moon landing ended successfully
D.the Mojave Desert was the launching base
2.According to the writer, which of the following is to blame for the story about the hoax?
A.NASA’s publicity campaign. B.The Fox television program.
C.Buzz Aldrin. D.James E. Oberg.
3.The believers think that NASA’s publicity campaign is ________.
A.proof to hide the truth
B.stupid and unnecessary
C.needed to convince the non-believers
D.important to develop space technology
4.What is implied in the last paragraph?
A.NASA should not bother with the non-believers.
B.Armstrong was a very private and determined person.
C.Armstrong should be as outspoken as Buzz Aldrin.
D.NASA should send more astronauts to outer space.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Have you ever been to London? Which famous sites did you visit? Or, if it is the first time that you 1.(be) there, which one will you check out?
Some world famous 2.(culture) sites may already be on your list: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the London Tower. However, a tour of London would be incomplete 3. checking out the London art scene. As a guidebook London’s Secrets: Museums & Galleries put it, London’s art is a lot like 4. city itself — “diverse, vast, and in a constant state of changes. From old masters to street art and everything in between, London has it all.”
In fact, according to The Telegraph, museums and galleries were the most 5.(visit) attractions in Britain last year. The British Museum, 6. celebrated its 225th anniversary this year, had the most visitors, at 6,701,036.
According to The Art Newspaper, the British Museum’s increased 7.(popular) is down to its exhibitions, particularly its Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum show ( March-September 2017 ).
There are more than 7 million artifacts(文物) in the British Museum. Not all of them are on display, but much of the collection 8.(constant) rotates(轮换), so you’ll see something new with each visit. So,9. you’re an art lover or just looking for a fun time, you’re sure 10.(find) inspiration in London.
高三英语七选五中等难度题查看答案及解析
Which is bigger, the sun _________ the moon?
A.or | B.and | C.but | D.so |
高三英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析
Most of us try to discover________ we think is the most moving love story in our company.
A.which | B.that | C.what | D.who |
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
Our usual walk is to or from the subway, ______ is how we get to work.
A.which B.where C.as D.that
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
The sun is bigger than the moon , ___ we all know it.
A.and B.as C.which D.it
高三英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析
Imagine trying to test the memory of the blue whale—the biggest animal that exists or has ever existed, a 190-ton behemoth that dwarfs (使相形见绌) even the largest dinosaur, a leviathan that is rarely seen except when it comes up for air. How would you subject such a creature to a psychological test?
You can’t, exactly. But there is another way to get a sense of how their minds work. For years, scientists have been fitting radio tags to these giants to track their whereabouts (下落). By analyzing a decade’s worth of that data, Briana Abrahms from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has shown that these animals fine-tune the paths of their migrations to track the historical abundances of krill—the tiny crustaceans that they eat. Rather than finding where their prey (捕获物) currently is, they go after the places where their prey was in years past. Their migrations, in other words, are guided by memory. So what happens in a world where memory might lead them away from the right path?
Countless species of animals migrate over long distances to exploit far-flung sources of food, but these voyages aren’t just about getting to the final destination. The journey itself can be a sort of food tour, too. Migrating animals often adjust the pace and timing of their movements to hit pulses of seasonal food that spring up along their path. The ecologist Sandra van der Graaf described this as “surfing the green wave” after first observing it among barnacle geese. Others have found the same pattern among wasps, elk, mule deer, and brown bears.”
The blue whales of the North Pacific spend their winters in their breeding grounds off California and Costa Rica. Come spring, they swim up the coast of North America toward the food-rich summer waters of the Pacific Northwest. They could make the journey in two months (and they do, on the reverse trip back south). Instead, they take twice that time, pausing to gorge (狼吞虎咽) themselves on blooms of krill that appear along the way. It’s a leisurely season-long tour of a continent-wide buffet line.
Scientists can get a good sense of this changing buffet by measuring the concentrations of chlorophyll in different patches of ocean. This green pigment (色素) reflects the amount of plankton, which in turn is eaten by krill. The more chlorophyll there is, the more food a blue whale might find.
By comparing chlorophyll counts to whale movements, Abrahms and her team expected to see that “they follow the timing of their prey, as it becomes available,” she says. But they were surprised to learn that the animals very rarely tracked contemporary waves of krill. Instead, their movements were strongly correlated (相关联) with 10-year historical averages of chlorophyll. Put it this way: You could predict a blue whale’s movements with far more accuracy by looking at where their food has been than where their food currently is.
1.How are the scientists carrying out a psychological test on the blue whales?
A. They wait for the blue whales to approach the sea surface.
B. They induce the blue whales to accept the memory test.
C. They count on a tracking technique to accumulate data.
D. They compare the blue whales with the large dinosaurs.
2.What might migrating animals do if they are misguided by memory?
A. They might try their best to get to the final destination.
B. They might fall back on the seasonal food along the way.
C. They might accelerate the pace to cover longer distances.
D. They might surf the ocean wave to save time and energy.
3.What does the continent-wide buffet line in Paragraph 4 indicate?
A. The breeding grounds of the blue whales are lacking in food.
B. Chlorophyll can be defined as the beginning of the food chain.
C. Contemporary waves of krill can reflect whale movements.
D. The season change determines the hunting route of the whales.
高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
Ever walked to the shops only to find, once there, you’ve completely forgotten what you went for? Or struggled to remember the name of an old friend? For years we’ve accepted that a forgetful brain is as much a part of ageing as wrinkles and grey hair.But now a new book suggests that we’ve got it all wrong.
According to The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain, by science writer Barbara Strauch, when it comes to the important things, our brains actually get better with age.In fact, she argues that some studies have found that our brain hits its peak between our 40s and 60s—much later than previously thought.
Furthermore, rather than losing many brain cells as we age, we retain them, and even produce new ones well into middle age.For years it’s been assumed that brain, much like the body, declines with age.But the longest, largest study into what happens to people as they age suggests otherwise.
This continuing research has followed 6,000 people since 1956, testing them every seven years.It has found that on average, participants performed better on cognitive(认知的) tests in their 40s and 50s than they had done in their 20s.Specifically, older people did better on tests of vocabulary, verbal memory (how many words you can remember) and problem solving.
Where they performed less well was number ability and perceptual speed—how fast you can push a button when ordered.However, with more complex tasks such as problem-solving and language, we are at our best at middle age and beyond.In short, researchers are now coming up with scientific proof that we do get wiser with age.
Neuroscientists are also finding that we are happier with ageing.A recent US study found older people were much better at controlling and balancing their emotions.It is thought that when we’re younger we need to focus more on the negative aspects of life in order to learn about the possible dangers in the world, but as we get older we’ve learned our lessons and are sub-consciously aware that we have less time left in life: therefore, it becomes more important for us to be happy.
1.Barbara Strauch probably agrees that ______.
A.the young are better at handling important things
B.people’s brains work best between their 40s and 60s
C.ageing leads to the decline of the function of the brain
D.wrinkles and grey hair are the only symbols of ageing
2.The continuing research has found older people perform better on _____ .
A.vocabulary tests
B.number ability
C.perceptual speed
D.body balance
3.People are happier with age because ______.
A.they learn to value the time left
B.they know how to share feelings
C.they cannot focus on negative aspects
D.they do not realize the possible dangers
4.What is the main idea of the passage?
A.People get wiser with age.
B.People get more forgetful with age.
C.People get happier with age.
D.People get more self-aware with age.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Ever walked to the shops only to find, once there, you’ve completely forgotten what you went for? Or struggled to remember the name of an old friend? For years we’ve accepted that a forgetful brain is as much a part of aging as wrinkles and gray hair. But now a new book suggests that we’ve got it all wrong.
According to The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain, by science writer Barbara Strauch, when it comes to the important things, our brains actually get better with age. In fact, she argues that some studies have found that our brain hits its peak between our 40s and 60s — much later than previously thought.
Furthermore, rather than losing many brain cells as we age, we keep them, and even produce new ones well into middle age. For years it’s been assumed that brain, much like the body, declines with age. But the longest, largest study into what happens to people as they age suggests otherwise.
This continuing research has followed 6,000 people since 1956, testing them every seven years. It has found that on average, participants performed better on cognitive (认知的) tests in their 40s and 50s than they had done in their 20s. Specifically, older people did better on tests of vocabulary, verbal memory (how many words you can remember) and problem solving. Where they performed less well was number ability and perceptual speed — how fast you can push a button when ordered. However, with more complex tasks such as problem-solving and language, we are at our best at middle age and beyond. In short, researchers are now coming up with scientific proof that we do get wiser with age.
Neuroscientists are also finding that we are happier with aging. A recent US study found older people were much better at controlling and balancing their emotions. It is thought that when we’re younger we need to focus more on the negative aspects of life in order to learn about the possible dangers in the world, but as we get older we’ve learned our lessons and are aware that we have less time left in life: therefore, it becomes more important for us to be happy.
1.Barbara Strauch probably agrees that ______.
A. people’s brains work best between their 40s and 60s
B. the young are better at handling important things
C. aging leads to the decline of the function of the brain
D. wrinkles and gray hair are the only symbols of aging
2.The continuing research has found older people perform better on ______.
A. perceptual speed B. vocabulary tests
C. number ability D. body balance
3.People are happier with aging because ______.
A. they know how to share feelings
B. they learn to value the time left
C. they cannot focus on negative aspects
D. they do not realize the possible dangers
4.What is the main idea of the passage?
A. People get happier with age.
B. People get more self-aware with age.
C. People get wiser with age.
D. People get more forgetful with age.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析