2015年职称英语理工A阅读理解必考文章 字典版.doc

44fj gong-a 第九篇an essential scientific process一个至关重要的科学过程 all life on the earth depends upon green plants. using sunlight, the plants produce their own food. then animals feed upon the plants. they take in the nutrients the plants have made and stored. but thats not all. sunlight also helps a plant produce oxygen. some of the oxygen is used by the plant, but a plant usually produces more oxygen than it uses. the excess oxygen is necessary for animals and other organisms to live. the process of changing light into food and oxygen is called photosynthesis. besides light energy from the sun, plants also use water and carbon dioxide. the water gets to the plant through its roots. the carbon dioxide enters the leaves through tiny openings called stomata. the carbon dioxide travels to chloroplasts, special cells in the bodies of green plants. this is where photosynthesis takes place. chloroplasts contain the chlorophylls that give plants their green color. the chlorophylls are the molecules that trap light energy. the trapped light energy changes water and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen and a simple sugar called glucose. carbon dioxide and oxygen move into and out of the stomata. water vapor also moves out of the stomata. more than 90 percent of water a plant takes in through its roots escapes through the stomata. during the daytime, the stomata of most plants are open. this allows carbon dioxide to enter the leaves for photosynthesis. as night falls, carbon dioxide is not needed. the stomata of most plants close. water loss stops. if photosynthesis ceased, there would be little food or other organic matter on the earth. most organisms would disappear. the earths atmosphere would no longer contain oxygen. photosynthesis is essential for life on our planet.练习：1in the first paragraph，the word “excess” means. bextra.2which of the following does not move through a plants stomata? dfood.3in the title, the term essential scientific process refers to aphotosynthesis.4this passage is primarily developed by aexplaining a process.5another good title for this passage would be chow photosynthesis works.第二十二篇real world robots现实世界中的机器人when you think of a robot, do you envision a shiny, metallic device having the same general shape as a human being, performing humanlike functions, and responding to your questions in a monotone voice accentuated by high-pitched tones and beeps? this is the way many of us imagine a robot, but in the real world, a robot is not humanoid at all. instead a robot often is a voiceless, box-shaped machine that efficiently carries out repetitive or dangerous functions usually performed by humans. todays robot is more than an automatic machine that performs one task again and again. a modern robot is programmed with varying degrees of artificial intelligence that is, arobot contains a computer program that tells it how to perform tasks associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning, drawing conclusions, and learning from past experience. a robot does not possess a human shape for the simple reason that a two-legged robot has great difficulty remaining balanced. a robot does, however, move from place to place on wheels and axles that roll and rotate. a robot even has limbs that swivel and move in combination with joints and motors. to find its way in its surroundings, a robot utilizes various built-in sensors. antennae attached to the robots base detect anything they bump into. if the robot starts to teeter as it moves on anincline, a gyroscope or a pendulum inside it senses the vertical differential.to determine its distance from an object and how quickly it will reach theobject，the robot bounces beams of laser light and ultrasonic sound waves off obstructions in its path. these and other sensors constantly feed information to the computer, which then analyzes the information and corrects or adjusts the robots actions. as science and technology advance, the robot too will progress in its functions and use of artificial-intelligence programs.练习：1another good title for this passage would be .c todays robots and how they function.2artificial intelligence is .d a computer program that imitates human intellectual processes.3the last paragraph suggests that future robots will be .a more humanlike in behavior and actions.4the writer begins the passage by comparing .b a modem robot with a fictional robot.5the word humanoid means .d having a human form or characteristics.第三十四篇batteries built by viruses病毒电池 what do chicken pox，the common cold, the flu，and aids have in common? theyre all disease caused by viruses, tiny microorganisms that can pass from person to personits no wonder that when most people think about viruses, finding ways t0 steer clear of viruses is whats on peoples minds not everyone runs from the tiny disease carders, thoughin cambridge, massachusetts, scientists have discovered that some viruses can be helpful in an unusual waythey are putting viruses to work, teaching them to build some of the worlds smallest rechargeable batteries viruses and batteries may seem like an unusual pair，but theyre not so strange for engineer angela belcher，who first came up with the ideaat the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) in cambridge, she and her collaborators bring together different areas of science in new waysin the case of the virus-built batteries, the scientists combine what they know about biology, technology and production techniques belchers team includes paula hammond，who helps put together the tiny batteries, and yet-ming chiang， an expert on how to store energy in the form of a battery“were working on things we traditionally dont associate with nature” says hammond many batteries are already pretty smallyou can hold a, c and d batteries in your handthe coinlike batteries that power watches are often smaller than a pennyhowever。every year，new electronic devices like personal music players or cell phones get smaller than the year beforeas these devices shrink, ordinary batteries wont be small enough to fit inside the ideal battery will store a lot of energy in a small packageright now, belchers model battery, a metallic disk completely built by viruses, looks like a regular watch batterybut inside，its components are very smallso tiny you can only see them with a powerful microscope how small are these battery parts? to get some idea of the size，pluck one hair from your headplace your hair on a piece of white paper and try to see how wide your hair ispretty thin，right? although the width of each persons hair is a bit different，you could probably fit about l o of these virusbuilt battery parts，side to side，across one hairthese microbatteries may change the way we look at viruses练习： 1according to the first paragraph, people try tocstay away from viruses because they are causes of various diseases.2what is belchers team doing at present?cit is making batteries with viruses.3what expression below is opposite in meaning to the word shrink appearing in paragraph 5？dexpand.4. which of the following is true of belchers battery mentioned in paragraph 6？dit is a metallic disk with viruses inside it.5. how tiny is one battery part?aits width is one tenth of a hair.第三十五篇putting plants to work植物效能 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: theyve been using sunlight as an energy source for billions of years. ceils in the green leaves of plants work like tiny factories to convert sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into1 sugars and starches, stored energy that the plants can use. this conversion process is called photosynthesis. unfortunately, unless youre a plant, its difficult and expensive to convert sunlight into storable energy. thats 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, mafia ghirardi of the national renewable energy laboratory in golden, colo.2, is working with green algae3. shes trying to trick them into producing hydrogen4 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 air free environment. its the oxygen in the air that prevents algae from making hydrogen most of the time. working in an air free environment, however, is difficult. its 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 algaes 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. theres a lot of flexibility in how you can use these organisms.”练习： 1. what does the writer say about plants concerning solar energy?c） plants have been using solar energy for billions of years. 2. why do some scientists study how plants convert sunlight carbon dioxide, and water into sugars and starches? b） because they want green plants to become a new source of energy. 3. according to the fifth paragraph, under what conditions are algae able to use solar energy to make hydrogen? b） when there is no oxygen in the air. 4. researchers have met with difficulties when trying to make algae produce hydrogen efficiently. which one of the following is one such difficulty?d） it is too slow for algae to produce hydrogen when the sulfate is removed. 5. what is not true of algae?c） they are cheap to eat.第三十六篇listening device provides landslide early warning听觉仪器提供早期山崩预警 a device that provides early warning of a landslide by monitoring vibrations in soil is being tested by uk researchers. the device could save thousands of lives each year by warning when an area should be evacuated, the scientists say. such natural disasters are common in countries that experience sudden, heavy rainfall, and can also be triggered by earthquakes and even water erosion. landslides start when a new particles of soil or rock within a slope start to move, but the early stages can be hard to spot. following this initial movement, “slopes can become unstable in a matter of hours or minutes,” says nell dixon at loughborough university1, uk. he says a warning system that monitors this movement “might be enough to evacuate a block of flats or clear a road, and save lives.” the most common way to monitor a slope for signs of an imminent landslide is to watch for changes in its shape. surveyors can do this by measuring a site directly, or sensors sunk into boreholes or fixed above ground can be used to monitor the shape of a slope. slopes can, however, change shape without triggering a landslide, so either method is prone to causing false alarms. now dixons team has developed a device that listens for the vibrations caused when particles begin moving within a slope. the device takes the form of a steel pipe dropped into a borehole in a slope. the borehole is filled in with gravel around the pipe to help transmit high-frequency vibrations generated by particles within the slope. these vibrations pass up the tube and are picked up by a sensor on the surface. software analyses the vibration signal to determine whether a landslide may be imminent. the device is currently being tested in a 6-metre-tall artificial clay embankment in newcastle2, uk. early results suggest it should provide fewer false positives than existing systems. once it has been carefully and thoroughly tested, the device could be used to create a complete early-warning system for dangerous slopes. “locations with a significant risk of landslides could definitely benefit from a machine like this,” says adam poulter, an expert at the british red cross. “as long as it doesnt cost too much.” but, poulter adds that an early-warning system may not be enough on its own. “you need to have the human communication,” he says. “making systems that get warnings to those who need them can be difficult.”练习: 1. what does “such natural disasters” in the first paragraph refer to? d landslides. 2. which of the following statements is true of landslides? d all of the above. 3. why do researchers develop a new device to monitor signs of landsides? c because the common methods can cause false alarms. 4. which of the following statements is not true of the device, according to paragraph 4? a it is filled in with gravel. 5. according to the context, what does the word “positives” in the fifth paragraph mean? b evidences.第三十七篇“dont drink alone” gets new meaning不要在就餐时间以外饮酒有了新含义 in what may be bad news for bars and pubs, an european research group has found that people drinking alcohol out side of meals have a significantly higher risk of cancer in the mouth and neck than do those taking their libations with food.1 luigino dal maso and his colleagues studied the drinking patterns of 1,500 patients from four cancer studies2 and another 3,500 adults who had never had cancer. after the researchers accounted for the amount of alcohol consumed, they found that individuals who downed a significant share of their alcohol outside of meals3 faced at least a 50 to 80 percent risk of cancer in the oral cavity, pharynx, and esophagus, when compared with people who drank only at meals. consuming alcohol without food also increased by at least 20 percent the likelihood of laryngeal4 cancer. “roughly 95 percent of cancers at these four sites5 traced to smoking or drinking6 by the study volunteers,” dal maso says. the discouraging news, his team reports, is that drinking with meals didnt eliminate cancer risk at any of the sites. for their new analyst, the european scientists divided people in the study into four groups, based on how many drinks they reported having in an average week7. the lowest-intake group included people who averaged up to8 20 drinks a week. the highest group reported downing at least 56 servings of alcohol weekly for an average of eight or more per day.9 cancer risks for the mouth and neck sites rose steadily with consumption even for people who reported drinking only with meals. for instance, compared with people in the lowest-consumption group, participants who. drank 21 to 34 alcohol servings a week at least doubled their cancer risk for all sites other than the larynx10. if people in these consumption groups took some of those drinks outside meals, those in the higher consumption group at least quadrupled their risk for oral cavity and esophageal cancers. people in the highest-consumption group who drank only with meals had 10 times the risk of oral cancer, 7 times the risk of pharyngeal cancer, and 16 times the risk of esophageal cancer compared with those who averaged 20 or fewer drinks a week with meals. in contrast, laryngeal cancer risk in the high-intake, with-meals-only group11 was only triple that12 in the low-intake consumers who drank with meals. “alcohol can inflame tissues. over time, that inflammation can trigger cancer.” dal maso says. he suspects that food reduced cancer risk either by partially coating digestive-tract tissues or by scrubbing alcohol of those tissues. he speculates that the reason laryngeal risks were dramatically lower for all study participants traces to the tissues lower exposure to alcohol.练习: 1. researchers have found that the risk of cancer in the mouth and neck is higher with people a who drink alcohol outside of meals. 2. which of the following is not the conclusion made by the researchers about “drinking with meals”? c it increases by 20 percent the possibility of cancer in all sites. 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? b laryngeal cancer. 5. according to the last paragraph, tissues lower exposure to alcohol d reduces the risk of laryngeal cancer.第三十八篇life form found on saturns titan土卫六上发现了生命迹象 scientists say they have discovered hints of alien life on the saturns moon. the discovery of a sort of life was announced after researchers at the us space agency, nasa, analyzed data from spacecraft cassini, which pointed to the existence of methane-based form of life on saturns biggest moon. scientists have reportedly discovered clues showing primitive alien bei