第四部分：阅读理解(第31～45题，每题3分，共45分)
下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每题后面有4个选项。请仔细阅读短文并根据短文回答其后面的问题，从4个选项中选择1个最佳答案涂在答题卡相应的位置上。
第一篇
Putting Plants to Work
Using the power of the sun is nothing new. People have had solar-powered calculators and buildings with solar panels for decades. But plants are the real experts: They've been using sunlight as an energy source for billions of years.
Cells in the green leaves of plants work like tiny factories to convert sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into sugars and starches, stored energy that the plants can use. This conversion process is called photosynthesis. Unfortunately, unless you're a plant, it's difficult and expensive to convert sunlight into storable energy. That's why scientists are taking a closer look at exactly how plants do it.
Some scientists are trying to get plants, or biological cells that act like plants, to work as miniature photosynthetic power stations. For example, Maria Ghirardi of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., is working with green algae. She's trying to trick them into producing hydrogen instead of sugars when they perform photosynthesis. Once the researchers can get the algae working efficiently, the hydrogen that they produce could be used to power fuel cells in cars or to generate electricity.
The algae are grown in narrow-necked glass bottles to produce hydrogen in the lab. During photosynthesis, plants normally make sugars or starches. “But under certain conditions, a lot of algae are able to use the sunlight energy not to store starch, but to make hydrogen.” Ghirardi says. For example, algae will produce hydrogen in an airfree environment. It's the oxygen in the air that prevents algae from making hydrogen most of the time. Working in an airfree environment, however, is difficult. It's not a practical way to produce cheap energy. But Ghirardi and her colleagues have discovered that by removing a chemical called sulfate from the environment that the algae grow in, they will make hydrogen instead of sugars, even when air is present.
Unfortunately, removing the sulfate also makes the algae's cells work very slowly, and not much hydrogen is produced. Still, the researchers see this as a first step in their goal to produce hydrogen efficiently from algae. With more work, they may be able to speed the cells' activity and produce larger quantities of hydrogen.
The researchers hope that algae will one day be an easy-to-use fuel source. The organisms are cheap to get and to feed, Ghirardi says, and they can grow almost anywhere: “You can grow them in a reactor, in a pond. You can grow them in the ocean. There's a lot of flexibility in how you can use these organisms. ”
31 What does the writer Say about plants concerning solar energy?_______
A Plants are the real experts in producing solar energy.
B Plants have been used to produce solar energy.
C Plants have been using solar energy for billions of years.
D Plants have been a source of solar energy.
32Why do some scientists study how plants convert sunlight carbon dioxide, and water into sugars and starches? _______
A Because they want algae to produce sugars and starches.
B Because they want green plants to become a new source of energy.
C Because they want to turn plant sugars to a new form of energy.
D Because they want to make photosynthesis more efficient.
33 According to the fifth paragraph, under what conditions are algae able to use solar energy to make hydrogen? _______
A When there is a lot of oxygen in the air.
B When there is no oxygen in the air.
C When photosynthesis is taking place.
D When enough starch is stored.
34 Researchers have met with difficulties when trying to make algae produce hydrogen efficiently. Which one of the following is one such difficulty? _______
A It is not possible to remove sulfate from the environment.
B It is not possible to work in an airfree environment to produce hydrogen.
C It is not easy to make sugars instead of hydrogen.
D It is too slow for algae to produce hydrogen when the sulfate is removed.
35 What is NOT true of algae? _______
A They are easy to grow.
B They can be a very good fuel source.
C They are cheap to eat.
D They can be used in many ways.
第二篇
Human Ingenuity
Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics—the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close.
As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robo-drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micro-mechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy—far greater precision that highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone.
But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves—goals that pose a real challenge. “While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error,” says Dave Lavery, manager of a robotics program at NASA, “we can't yet give a robot enough ' common sense' to reliably interact with a dynamic world. ”
Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries.
What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brain's roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented—and human perception far more complicated—than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth can't approach that kind of ability, and neuroscientists still don't know quite how we do it.
36 Human ingenuity was initially demonstrated in _______.
A the use of machines to produce science fiction
B the wide use of machines in manufacturing industry
C the invention of tools for difficult and dangerous work
D the elite's cunning tackling of dangerous and boring work
37 The word “gizmos” (line 1, paragraph 2) most probably means _______.
A programs
B experts
C devices
D creatures
38 According to the text, what is beyond man's ability now is to design a robot that can _______.
A fulfill delicate tasks like performing brain surgery
B interact with human beings verbally
C have a little common sense
D respond independently to a changing world
39 Besides reducing human labor, robots can also _________.
A make a few decisions for themselves
B deal with some errors with human intervention
C improve factory environments
D cultivate human creativity
40 The author uses the example of a monkey to argue that robots are _________.
A expected to copy human brain in internal structure
B able to perceive abnormalities immediately
C far less able than human brain in focusing on relevant information
D best used in a controlled environment
第三篇
The Rising Oil Price
Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $ 26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time?
The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil exports. Strengthening economic growth, at the dame time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short term.
Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, taxes account for up to four-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past.
Rich economics are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings in the oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production.For each dollar of GDP(in constant prices)rich economics now use nearly 50%less oil than in 1973.The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that。if oil prices averaged$2 2 a barrel for a full year，compared with$13 in l998。this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25%～0.5%of GDP.That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in l974 0r 1980.On the other hand，oilimporting emerging economies--to which heavy industry has shifted--have become more energy-intensive，and SO could be more seriously squeezed.
One more reason not to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that，unlike the rises in the 1970s，it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand.A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline.The Economist’s commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year a90.In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%，and in l979 by almost 30%.
41 The main reason for the latest rise of oil price is _________.
A global inflation
B reduction in supply
C fast growth in economy
D Iraq’s suspension of exports
42 It can be inferred from the text that the retail price of petrol will go up dramatically if _______.
A price of crude rises
B commodity prices rise
C consumption rises
D oil taxes rise
43 The estimates in Economic Outlook show that in rich countries _______.
A heavy industry becomes more energy-intensive
B income loss mainly results from fluctuating crude oil prices
C manufacturing industry has been seriously squeezed
D oil price changes have no significant impact on GDP
44 We can draw a conclusion from the text that _______.
A oil—price shocks are less shocking now
B inflation seems irrelevant to oil-price shocks
C energy conservation can keep down the oil prices
D the price rise of crude leads to the shrinking of heavy industry
45 From the text we can see that the writer seems _______.
A optimistic
B sensitive
C gloomy
D scared
