安徽省舒城中学2015-2016学年高一英语下学期第四(5)

27. What would be the best title for the text?

A. Get out there and live

C

In 1769, William Smith was born in a little town in Oxfordshire, England. He received basic village schooling but mostly he wandered on his uncle's farm collecting the fossils(化石) in the rocks of the Cotswold hills. When he grew older, Smith learned surveying from books and at 18 he learned from a local surveyor. He then began to teach himself geology (地质学) .

When he was 24, he went to work for the company that was digging the Somerset Coal Canal in the south of England. This job gave Smith an opportunity to study the fresh strata(地层) created by the newly dug canal. He later worked on similar jobs across England all the while studying strata and collecting all the fossils he could find. Smith used mail coaches to travel 10 ,000 miles per year. In 1815 he published the first modern geological map A B. The night I met Angelou D. My friendship with Angelou C. Speak from your inner self Map of the Strata of England and Wales with a Part of Scotland.

In 1831 when Smith was recognized by the Geological Society of London as the “father of English geology”, it was not only for his maps but also for something even more important. People had hoped strata could be used to calculate(计算出) geological time, but scientists found the sequences(顺序) of rocks sometimes differed from area to area and that no rock type was ever going to become a dependable time marker. Even without the problem of regional differences, rocks present a difficulty as unique time markers. Quartz(石英) is quartz; there's no difference between two-million-year-old quartz and quartz created over 500 million years ago.

As he collected fossils from strata, Smith noticed the fossils told a different story from the rocks. Particularly in the younger strata, the rocks were often so similar that he had trouble distinguishing(区别) the strata, but he never had trouble telling the fossils apart. Some fossils appear in many strata, but others occur only in a few strata, and a few species had their births and extinctions(灭绝) within one particular strata. Fossils are thus identifying markers for particular periods in Earth's history.

28. What do we know about young Smith?

A. He spent most of his time reading. B. He showed much interest in geology.

D. He received a very good formal C. He learned surveying just by himself.

education.

29. Which can be used to describe Smith according to Paragraph 2? 舒中高一统考英语 第5页 (共10页)

A. Adventurous and brave. B. Talented and productive.

C. Warm-hearted and honest. D. Hard-working and devoted.

30. The author mentions quartz to show that _____.

A. no rock can be a reliable time marker