（理工A）2014年完形填空

15. “Liquefaction” Key to Much of Japanese Earthquake Damage （“液化”是日本地震破

坏的关键）

The massive subduction zone1 earthquake in Japan caused a significant level of soil "liquefaction" that has surprised researchers with its severity, a new analysis shows.

"We've seen localized3 examples of soil liquefaction as extreme as this before, but the distance and of damage in Japan were unusually severe," said Scott Ashford, a professor of geotechnical engineering4 at Oregon State University5. "Entire structures were tilted and sinking into the sediments," Ashford said. "The shifts in soil destroyed water, drain and gas pipelines6, crippling the utilities and infrastructure these communities need to We saw some places that sank as much as four feet."

Some degree of soil liquefaction7 is common in almost any major earthquake. It's a phenomenon in which soils soaked with water, particularly recent sediments or sand, can lose much of their strength and flow during an earthquake. This can allow structures to shift or sink or .

But most earthquakes are much than the recent event in Japan, Ashford said. The length of the Japanese earthquake, as much as five minutes, may force researchers to reconsider the extent of liquefaction damage possibly occurring in situations such as this.

"With such a long-lasting earthquake, we saw after 30 seconds just continued to sink and tilt as the shaking continued for several more minutes," he said. "And it was clear that younger sediments, and especially areas built on filled ground, are much more vulnerable."

The data provided by analyzing the Japanese earthquake, researchers said, should make it possible to improve the understanding of this soil it in the future. Ashford said it was critical for the team to collect the information quickly, damage was removed in the recovery

efforts.

"There's no doubt that we'll learn things from what happened in Japan10 that11 will help us to reduce risks in other similar events ," Ashford said. "Future construction in some places may make more use of techniques known to reduce liquefaction, such as better compaction to make soils dense, or use of reinforcing stone columns."

Ashford pointed out that northern California have younger soils vulnerable to liquefaction ---on the coast, near river deposits or in areas with filled ground. The "young" sediments, in geologic terms, may be those within the past 10,000 years or more. In Oregon, for instance, that describes much of downtown Portland, the Portland International Airport and other cities.

Anything a river and old flood plains is a suspect12, and the Oregon Department of Transportation has already concluded that 1,100 bridges in the state are at risk from an earthquake. Fewer than 15 percent of them have been reinforced to collapse. Japan has suffered tremendous losses in the March 11 earthquake, but Japanese construction helped prevent many buildings from collapse ---even as they tilted and sank into the ground.

12. Free Statins With Fast Food Could Neutralize Heart Risk (快餐加免费降胆固醇药物可以降低罹患心脏病的风险)

Fast food outlets could provide statin drugs free of so that customers can reduce the heart disease dangers of fatty food, researchers at Imperial College London in a new study．

Statins reduce the unhealthy ‖LDL‖ cholesterol in the blood. A wealth of trial data has proven them to be highly effective at lowering a person’s heart attack

In a paper published in the American Journal of Cardiology，Dr Darrel Francis and colleagues calculate that the reduction in heart attack risk offered by a statin is to offset the increase in heart attack risk from

a cheeseburger and drinking a milkshake．

Dr Francis，from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London，who is the senior author of the study, said:‖Statins don’t cut out a11 of the effects of cheeseburgers and French fries．It’s better to avoid fatty food altogether．But we’ve worked out that in terms of your of having a heart attack. Taking a statin can reduce your risk to more or less the same as a fast food meal increases it.‖ ―It’s ironic that people are free to take as many unhealthv condiments in fast food outlets as they are beneficial to heart health, have to be prescribed. It makes sense to make risk-reducing statins available just as easily as the unhealthy condiments that are free of charge．It would cost less than 5 pence per 一not much different to a sachet of sugar.‖ Dr Francis said．

When people engage in risky behaviours like driving or smoking, they’re encouraged to take that lower their risk, 1ike filters. Taking a statin is a rational way of some of the risks of eating a fatty meal．

10. Chicken Soup for the Soul:Comfort Food Fights Lneliness（心灵鸡汤：爽心食品排解孤独感）

Mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, may be bad for your arteries， according to a study in Psychological Science, they’re good for your heart and ．The study focuses on ―comfort food‖ and how it makes people feel．

"For me ,food has always played a big role in my family,‖ says Jordan Troisi, a graduate student at the University of Buffalo, and lead author on the study．The study came out of the research program of his co—author Shira Gabriel．It has non-human things that may affect human emotions．Some people reduce loneliness by bonding with their virtual relationships with a pop song singer or looking at pictures of loved ones．Troisi and Gabriel wondered if comfort food could have the same effect making people think of their nearest and dearest.

In one experiment, in order to make feel lonely, the researchers had them write for six minutes about a fight with someone close to them．Others were given an emotionally neutral writing assignment. Then, some people in each wrote about the experience of eating a comfort food and others wrote about eating a new food． ,the researchers had participants questions about their levels of loneliness． Writing about a fight with a close person made people feel lonely．But people who were generally in their relationships would feel less lonely by writing about a comfort food．"We have found that comfort foods are consistently associated with those close to us．"says Troisi．"Thinking about or consuming these foods later then serves as a reminder of those close others．"In essays on comfort food, many people wrote about the of eating food with family and friends.

In another experiment, chicken soup in the lab made people think more about relationships, but only if they considered chicken soup to be a comfort food．This was a question they had been asked long before the experiment, along with many other questions, so they wouldn’t remember it.

Throughout everyone’s daily lives they experience stress, often associated with our with others," Troisi says．"Comfort food Can be an easy remedy for loneliness．

14. Sharks Perform a Service for Earth's Waters（鲨鱼有益于地球水系）

It is hard to get people to think of sharks as anything but a deadly enemy1. They are thought to people frequently. But these fish2 perform a service for earth's waters and for human beings. Yet business and sport fishing3 are threatening

their Some sharks are at risk of disappearing from Warm weather may influence both fish and shark activity. Many fish swim near coastal areas because of their warm waters. Experts say sharks may follow the fish into the same areas, people also swim. In fact, most sharks do not purposely charge at or bite humans. They are thought to mistake a person a sea animal, such as a seal or sea lion. That is why people should not swim in the ocean when the sun goes down or comes up. Those are the times when sharks are looking for food. Experts also say that bright colors and shiny jewelry may cause sharks to attack. A shark has an extremely good sense of smell4' It can find small amounts of substances in water, such as blood, body liquids and chemicals produced by animals. These powerful help sharks fred their food. Sharks eat fish, any sharks, and plants that live in the ocean. Medical researchers want to learn more about the shark's body defense, and immune against disease. Researchers know that sharks quickly from injuries. They study the shark in hopes of finding a way to fight human disease. Sharks are important for the world's They eat injured and diseased fish. Their hunting activities mean that the numbers of other fish in ocean waters do not become too This protects the plants and other forms of life that exist in the oceans. 6. Car Thieves Could Be Stopped

Remotely(远程制止偷车贼)

Speeding off in a stolen car, the thief

thinks he has got a great catch. But he is in a

nasty surprise. The car is fitted with a remote

immobilizer, and a radio signal from a control

center miles away will ensure that once the

thief switches the engine he will not be

able to start it again.

For now, such devices only available

for fleets of trucks and specialist vehicles used

on construction sites. But remote immobilization technology could soon start to trickle down to ordinary cars, and be available to ordinary cars in the UK two months. The idea goes like this. A control box fitted to the car incorporatesminiature cellphone, a microprocessor and memory, and a GPS satellite positioning receiver. car is stolen, a coded cellphone signal will tell the unit to block the vehicle’s engine management system and prevent the engine restarted. There are even plans for immobilizers shut down vehicles on the move, though there are fears over the safety implications of such a system. In the UK, an array of technical fixes is already making harder for car thieves. ―The pattern of vehicles crime has changed,‖ says Martyn Rand all of Thatcham, a security research organization based in Berkshire that is funded in part the motor insurance industry. He says it would only take him a few minutes to a novice how to steal a car, using a bare minimum of tools. But only if the car is more than 10 years old. Modern cars are a far tougher proposition, as their engine management computer will not them to start unless they receive a unique ID code beamed out by the ignition key. In the UK, technologies like this achieve a 31 per cent drop in vehicle-related crime since 1997. But determined criminals are still managing to find other ways to steal cars. Often by getting hold of the owner’s keys in a burglary. In 2000, 12 per cent of vehicles stolen in the UK were taken by using the

owner’s keys, which doubles the previous year’s figure. Remote-controlled immobilization system would a major new obstacle in the criminal’s way by making such thefts pointless. A group that includes Thatcham, the police, insurance companies and security technology firms have developed standards for a system that could go on the market sooner than the 7. An Intelligent Car(智能汽车) Driving needs sharp eyes, keen ears, quick brain, and coordination between hands and the brain. Many human drivers have all

can control a fast-moving car. But how does an intelligent car control itself?

There is a virtual driver in the smart car. This virtual driver has ―eyes‖, ―brains‖, ―hands‖ and ―feet‖, too. The minicameras on each side of the car are his ―eyes‖, which observe the road conditions ahead of it. They watch the to the car’s left and right. There is also a highly driving system in the car. It is the built-in computer, which is the virtual driver’s ―brain‖. His ―brain‖ calculates the speeds of cars near it and analyzes their positions. Basing on this information, it chooses the right for the intelligent car, and gives to the ―hands‖ and ―feet‖ to act accordingly. In this way, the virtual driver controls his car.

What is the virtual driver’s best advantage? He reacts . The minicameras are images continuously to the ―brain.‖ It the processing of the images within 100 milliseconds. However, the world’s best driver needs one second to react. , when he takes action, he needs one more second.

The virtual driver is really wonderful. He can reduce the accident considerably on expressways. In this case, can we let him have the wheel at any time and in amy place? Experts that we cannot do that just yet. His ability to recognize things is still He can now only drive an intelligent car on expressways.

9. Wonder Webs(奇妙的网)

Spider webs are more than homes, and they are ingenious traps. And the world’s best web spinner may be the Golden Orb Weaver spider. The female Orb Weaver spins a web of fibers thin enough to be invisible to insect prey, yet tough enough to snare a flying bird without breaking.

The secret of the web’s strength? A type of super-resilient called dragline. When the female spider is ready to the web’s spokes and frame, she uses her legs to draw the airy thread out through a hollow nozzle in her belly. Dragline is not sticky, so the spider can race back and forth along to spin the web’s

trademark spiral.

Unlike some spiders that weave a new web every day, a Golden Orb Weaver her handiwork until it falls apart, sometimes not for two years. The silky thread is five times stronger than steel by weight and absorbs the force of an impact three times better than Kevlar, a high-strength human-made used in bullet-proof vests. And thanks to its high tensile strength, or the ability to resist breaking under the pulling force called tension, a single strand can stretch up to 40 percent longer than its original and snap back as well as new. No human-made fiber even comes .

It is no manufacturers are clamoring for spider silk. In the consumer pipeline: high-performance fabrics for athletes and stockings that never run. Think parachute cords and suspension bridge cables. A steady of spider silk would be worth billions of dollars – but how to produce it? Harvesting silk on spider farms does not because the territorial arthropods have a tendency to devour their neighbors.

Now, scientists at the biotechnology company Nexia are spinning artificial silk modeled after Golden Orb dragline. The step: extract silk-making genes from the spiders. Next, implant the genes into goat egg cells. The nanny goats that grow from the eggs secrete dragline silk proteins in their ―The young goats pass on the silk-making gene without help from us,‖ says Nexia president Jeffrey Turner. Nexia is still perfecting the spinning process, but they hope artificial spider silk will soon be snagging customers the real thing snags bugs.

（理工A）2014年阅读理解

48. Researchers Discover Why Humans Began Walking Upright （2013教材新增）研究人员发现人类开始直立行走的原因 1. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the first two paragraphs? 2. Dr. Richmond conducted the experiment with the purpose of finding

3. Kyoto, University's study discovered that chimpanzees.

4. Why did the chimpanzees walk on two limbs during Kyoto University's experiment? 5. What can we infer from the reading passage?

46.Ants have Big Impact on Environment as "Ecosystem Engineers"（2012新增文章）蚂蚁作为“生态系统工程师”对环境影响巨大 1 .Why are ants compared to ecosystem engineers?

2. As predators, ants

3. Dir Sanders' study centered on how ants 4. What does paragraph 6 tell us?

5. What still remains unclear about ants, according to the last paragraph?

40. Teaching Math, Teaching Anxiety（2012新增文章）（教数学，教焦虑）

1. What is the result of the research at the University of Chicago,according to the first paragraph?

2. What is implied in the third paragraph?

3. According to the experiment,those teachers were probably anxious about math when they felt

4. The sixth paragraph tells us that the research findings

5. David Geary thinks that

50. Cell Phones Increase Traffic, Pedestrian Fatalities（手机增加交通行人死亡）

1. The two new studies, lead-authored by Professor Peter D. Loeb 2. According to the second paragraph, when did cell phones actually help to reduce pedestrian and traffic fatalities?

3. What is said about cell phone use in paragraph 4?

4. What is said about cell phone use in the mid-1980s in paragraph 5?

5. Which of the following statements DOES NOT answer the question "What caused the "life-saving effect" to occur in the early 1990s?"

about 100 million.

49. U. S. Scientists Confirm Water on Mars（美国科学家确认火星上有水）

1. What was discovered by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander on Mars? 2. Why did the first two attempts to deliver samples fail?

3. Which one of the following statements is NOT meant by the writer?

4. Where are the scientists involved in the research from?

5. Which of the following do you think is the best description of Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager Camera, according to your understanding of the passage?

47. Listening to Birdsong（倾听鸟鸣）

1. What does the first paragraph say about zebra finches?

2. What did the researchers fred in their study of female zebra finches?

3. What is meant by "concert songs" in the seventh paragraph?

4. What is NOT true of directed communication?

D)Male zebra finches sing to themselves.

5. Which of the following can best reflect the theme of the passage?.

44. Defending the Theory of Evolution1 Still Seems Needed（捍卫进化论仍必要）

1. According to the first paragraph, which of the following statements about the theory of evolution is true?

2. Which one of the following is NOT the reason for an overall lack of teaching Darwin's 3. AIBS is composed of

4. According to Weis in the 5th paragraph, the theory of evolution

5.Why do people replace the term creationism with the term intelligent design nowadays? 42. Renewable Energy Sources （可再生能源）

1. What are the energy resources that are not renewable according to the article? 2. China's Three Gorges Dam

3. Which is the country with thefirst commercial power station that makes use of ocean currents produced by tides? 4. Which of the following statements is true of wind power?

5. According to the article, resources such as wind

41.Too Little for Global Warming（全球变暖“缺油”）

1. What do the authors of the new analysis presented at the University of Uppsala intend to say?

2. Nations that signed the Kyoto Protocol agree to

3. What are the estimates of the world’s oil and gas reserves?

4. Which of the following about Nebojsa Nakicenovic is true?

5. Which of the following is the near explanation of Nakicenovic’s assertion that ―.. such a switch would be disastrous..?

39. Clone Farm（克隆农场）

1. Which statement is the best description of the new era of factory farming according to the first paragraph?

same growth rate, weight and taste.

2. Which institution has offered $4.7 million to fund the research?

3. In the third paragraph, by saying ―Producers would like the same meat quantity but to use reduced inputs to get there.‖ Mike Fitzgerald means that he wishes

4. Which of the following statements about Origen and Embrex is correct according to the fifth paragraph?

5. The technology of freezing stem cells from different strains of chicken can do all the following EXCEPT that

37. "Don't Drink Alone" Gets New Meaning（不要在就餐时间以外饮酒有了新含义） 1. Researchers have found that the risk of cancer in the mouth and neck is higher with people

2. Which of the following is NOT the conclusion made by the researchers about ―drinking with meals‖?

3. Approximately how many drinks do the lowest-intake group average per day? A. 3 drinks.

4. Which cancer risk is the lowest among all the four kinds of cancer mentioned in the passage?

5. According to the last paragraph, tissue's lower exposure to alcohol

D. reduces the risk of laryngeal cancer. 36.Listening Device Provides Landslide Early Warning（听觉仪器提供早期山崩预

警）

1. What does "Such natural disasters" in the first paragraph refer to? 2. Which of the following statements is true of landslides?

3. Why do researchers develop a new device to monitor signs of landsides?

4. Which of the following statements is NOT true of the device, according to Paragraph 4? 5. According to the context, what does the word "positives" in the fifth paragraph mean? 34. Batteries Built by Viruses （病毒电池） 1.According to the first paragraph，people try to

2.What is Belcher’s team doing at present? 3.What expression below is opposite in meaning to the word "shrink" appearing in paragraph 5 ?

4.Which of the following is true of Belcher’s battery mentioned in paragraph 6?

5.How tiny is one battery part?

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