快速导航
学历类
职业资格
公务员
医卫类
建筑工程
外语类
外贸类
计算机类
财会类
技能鉴定
What does the future hold for the problem of housing? A good deal depends, of
course, on the meaning of “future”. If one is thinking in terms of science
fiction and the space age, it is at least possible to assume that man will have
solved such trivial and earthly problems as housing. Writers of science fiction,
from H.G. Wells onwards, have had little to say on the subject. They have
conveyed the suggestion that men will live in great comfort, with every
conceivable apparatus to make life smooth, healthy and easy, if not happy. But
they have not said what his house will be made of. Perhaps some new building
material, as yet unimagined, will have been discovered or invented at least. One
may be certain that bricks and mortar(泥灰，灰浆) will long have gone out of
fashion.
But the problems of the next generation or two can more readily be imagined.
Scientists have already pointed out that unless something is done either to
restrict the world’s rapid growth in population or to discover and develop new
sources of food (or both), millions of people will be dying of starvation or at
the best suffering from underfeeding before this century is out. But nobody has
yet worked out any plan for housing these growing populations. Admittedly the
worst situations will occur in the hottest parts of the world, where housing can
be light structure or in backward areas where standards are traditionally low.
But even the minimum shelter requires materials of some kind and in the teeming,
bulging towns the low-standard “housing” of flattened petrol cans and dirty
canvas is far more wasteful of ground space than can be tolerated.
Since the war, Hong Kong has suffered the kind of crisis which is likely to
arise in many other places during the next generation. Literally millions of
refugees arrived to swell the already growing population and emergency steps had
to be taken rapidly to prevent squalor(肮脏)and disease and the spread crime. The
city is tackling the situation energetically and enormous blocks of
tenements(贫民住宅)are rising at an astonishing aped. But Hong Kong is only one
small part of what will certainly become a vast problem and not merely a housing
problem, because when population grows at this rate there are accompanying
problems of education, transport, hospital services, drainage, water supply and
so on. Not every area may give the same resources as Hong Kong to draw upon and
the search for quicker and cheaper methods of construction must never cease.
1.What is the author’s opinion of housing problems in the first
paragraph?
A.They may be completely solved at sometime in the future.
B.They are unimportant and easily dealt with.
C.They will not be solved until a new building material has been
discovered.
D.They have been dealt with in specific detail in books describing the
future.
2.The writer is sure that in the distant future ___.
A.bricks and mortar will be replaced by some other building material.
B.a new building material will have been invented.
C.bricks and mortar will not be used by people who want their house to be
fashionable.
D.a new way of using bricks and mortar will have been discovered.
3.The writer believes that the biggest problem likely to confront the world
before the end of the century ___.
A.is difficult to foresee.
B.will be how to feed the ever growing population.
C.will be how to provide enough houses in the hottest parts of the world.
D.is the question of finding enough ground space.
4.When the writer says that the worst situations will occur in the hottest
parts of the world or in backward areas, he is referring to the fact that in
these parts ___.
A.standards of building are low.
B.only minimum shelter will be possible.
C.there is not enough ground space.
D.the population growth will be the greatest.
5.Which of the following sentences best summarizes Paragraph 3?
A.Hong Kong has faced a serious crisis caused by millions of refugees.
B.Hong Kong has successfully dealt with the emergency caused by millions of
refugees.
C.Hong Kong’s crisis was not only a matter of housing but included a number
of other problems of population growth.
D.Many parts of the world may have to face the kind of problems encountered
by Hong Kong and may find it much harder to deal with them.
Section B
Directions: There are ten blanks in the following letter. You are required to
choose the best one from the given four choices marked A, B, C, and D. Then
write down the correct answer in the brackets. This section totals 10 points,
one point for each blank.
Dear Mr. Bush
Thank you for your 1 of January 5 for our Beauty Brand Blouses.
We are now exporting 2 of various brands, among which Beauty Brand is the
most famous. They are in great 3 abroad and our stocks are running 4 quickly.
They are popular not only for their novel design, but also for the reasonable
prices. We are confident that once you have tried our blouses, you will place
repeat orders with us 5 large quantities.
As you requested, we are now 6 as follows:
Price: US$600 per dozen CIF New York
Terms of Payment: By sight L/C to be opened through a bank to be 7 by the
Sellers.
Shipment: In March 2007.
Please note that we do not allow any commission 8 our blouses, but a discount
of 5% may be 9 if the quantity is more than 1,000 dozen.
The above offer is made without 10 and is subject to our final
confirmation.
We hope that you will place an order with us at an early date.
Sincerely yours
( )1. A. request B. enquiry C. acquisition D. requirement
( )2. A. blouses B. woman blouses C. woman shirts D. lady shirts
( )3. A. need B. want C. require D. demand
( )4. A. up B. off C. down D. away
( )5.A. at B. for C. in D. with
( )6. A. ordering B. offering C. placing D. advising
( )7. A. agreed B. approved C. acceptable D. covered
( )8. A. on B. in C. of D. at
( )9. A. provided B. supplied C. furnished D. granted
( )10. A. promise B. duty C. engagement D. onus
1. A European spacecraft took off today to spearhead the search for another
"Earth" among the stars.
2. The Corot space telescope blasted off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from
the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan shortly after 2.20pm.
3. Corot, short for convection rotation and planetary transits, is the first
instrument capable of finding small rocky planets beyond the solar system. Any
such planet situated in the right orbit stands a good chance of having liquid
water on its surface, and quite possibly life, although a leading scientist
involved in the project said it was unlikely to find "any little green men".
4. Developed by the French space agency, CNES, and partnered by the European
Space Agency (ESA), Austria, Belgium, Germany, Brazil and Spain, Corot will
monitor around 120,000 stars with its 27cm telescope from a polar orbit 514
miles above the Earth. Over two and a half years, it will focus on five to six
different areas of the sky, measuring the brightness of about 10,000 stars every
512 seconds.
5. "At the present moment we are hoping to find out more about the nature of
planets around stars which are potential habitats. We are looking at habitable
planets, not inhabited planets. We are not going to find any little green men,"
Professor Ian Roxburgh, an ESA scientist who has been involved with Corot since
its inception, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
6. Prof Roxburgh said it was hoped Corot would find "rocky planets that could
develop an atmosphere and, if they are the right distance from their parent
star, they could have water".
7. To search for planets, the telescope will look for the dimming of
starlight caused when an object passes in front of a star, known as a "transit".
Although it will take more sophisticated space telescopes planned in the next 10
years to confirm the presence of an Earth-like planet with oxygen and liquid
water, Corot will let scientists know where to point their lenses.
8. Measurements of minute changes in brightness will enable scientists to
detect giant Jupiter-like gas planets as well as small rocky ones. It is the
rocky planets - that could be no bigger than about twice the size of the Earth -
which will cause the most excitement. Scientists expect to find between 10 and
40 of these smaller planets.
9. Corot will also probe into stellar interiors by studying the acoustic
waves that ripple across the surface of stars, a technique called
"asteroseismology".
10. The nature of the ripples allows astronomers to calculate a star’s
precise mass, age and chemical composition.
11. "A planet passing in front of a star can be detected by the fall in light
from that star. Small oscillations of the star also produce changes in the light
emitted, which reveal what the star is made of and how they are structured
internally. This data will provide a major boost to our understanding of how
stars form and evolve," Prof Roxburgh said.
12. Since the discovery in 1995 of the first "exoplanet" - a planet orbiting
a star other than the Sun - more than 200 others have been found by ground-based
observatories.
13. Until now the usual method of finding exoplanets has been to detect the
"wobble" their gravity imparts on parent stars. But only giant gaseous planets
bigger than Jupiter can be found this way, and they are unlikely to harbour
life.
14. In the 2010s, ESA plans to launch Darwin, a fleet of four or five
interlinked space telescopes that will not only spot small rocky planets, but
analyse their atmospheres for signs of biological activity.
15. At around the same time, the US space agency, Nasa, will launch
Terrestrial Planet Finder, another space telescope designed to locate Earth-like
planets.
Choose the appropriate letter from A-D for question 1.
1. Corot is an instrument which
(A) can help to search for certain planets
(B) is used to find planets in the orbit
(C) can locate planets with human beings
(D) can spot any planets with water.
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading
passage? For questions 2-5 write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contraicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
2. Scientists are trying to find out about the planets that can be
inhabited.
3. BBC Radio 4 recently focuses on the broadcasting of Corot.
4. Passing objects might cause a fall in light.
5. Corot can tell whether there is another Earth-like planet.
Based on your reading of the passage, complete the sentences below with words
taken from the passage. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
With measurements, scientists will be able to search for some gaseous and
rocky planets. They will be extremely excited if they can discover some small 6.
__________, the expected number of which could be up to 7. __________ .
Corot will enable scientists to study the 8. __________ of stars. In this
way, a star’s mass, age and chemical composition can be calculated.
According to Prof Roxburgh, changes in light can be caused by passing planets
or star 9. __________. The related statistics can gain us a better 10.
__________ of the star formation and evolvement.
Observatories have found many exoplanets, which are 11. __________ other
stars than the Sun. The common way used in finding exoplanets can only detect
huge gas planets, which do not 12. ___________ .
With the launching of Darwin, astronomers will be able to analyse whether
those rocky planets have 13. __________ for life.
