《科技英语》综合复习资料(带答案)

科技英语综合复习资料Part I Reading Comprehension(阅读理解)Passage 1Geology is a natural science. With it men can discover all kinds of useful minerals. Geology studies the earth. But of the three spheres, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the lithosphere, it only directly studies the lithosphere. It studies the composition and distribution of material in the earths crust. It studies also the formation, changes and development of rocks and minerals in the earths crust. Geology is a very complex science. There are many branches in geology. Mineralogy is the science of the minerals. Petrology is the science of the rocks. Geomorphology deals with origin of landscapes and changes in them. Historical geology traces the evolution and development of the earth and of the animals and plants on it. Stratigraphy studies the sequence of the rocks in the earths crust. Paleontology deals with the ancient animals and plants. These are just a few of the most important branches of geology.Geology is a very important science. We depend upon geology for the discovery of mineral deposits needed by the various industries. A lot of minerals are used as fuel and raw materials. Without them industrialization is impossible. Minerals are also used as fertilizers in agriculture. China is very rich in mineral deposits of all kinds. The study of geology will help us to discover them.Petroleum occurs widely in the earth as gas, liquid, semisolid, or solid, or in more than one of these states at a single place. Chemically any petroleum is an extremely complex mixture of hydrocarbon (hydrogen and carbon) compounds, with minor amounts of nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur as impurities. Liquid petroleum, which is called crude oil to distinguish it from refined oil, is the most important commercially. It consists chiefly of the liquid hydrocarbons, with varying amounts of dissolved gases, bitumens, and impurities.Petroleum gas, commonly called natural gas to distinguish it from manufactured gas, consists of the lighter paraffin hydrocarbons, of which the most abundant is methane gas (CH4). The semisolid and solid forms of petroleum consist of the heavy hydrocarbons and bitumens.Geology plays an important role in the search for oil and natural gas. Four prerequisites are necessary for oil (and gas) to accumulate in commercial quantities in an area: (1) The oil originates in a source bed, and a marine shale, once a black mud rich in organic compounds, is thought to be a common source rock. (2) The oil then migrates to a permeable reservoir rock, and to do this it may travel for long distances both vertically and horizontally. Oil cannot move through the tiny openings of the shale source beds rapidly enough to be extracted profitably. (3) A nonpermeable layer must occur above a reservoir bed. Since oil is lighter than water, it tends to move upward through openings and cracks until it encounters impervious beds that it cannot penetrate. The oil may then accumulate beneath the impervious layers. Some gas occurs in solution within the oil, and if enough is present it separates out to occupy the uppermost region of such a trap. (4) A favorable structure must exist to concentrate the oil and anticlines, salt plugs, and faults are common examples. A fault zone may itself be impervious, or faulting may have shifted an impervious bed so that it now blocks a reservoir bed. Stratigraphic traps tend to be more difficult to locate and may form where tilted reservoir beds are overlain unconformably by impervious layers or where the reservoir beds become thinner up-dip and wedge out within enclosing impervious beds. Thus oil that was once distributed in sparse amounts throughout a very large volume of rock may now be richly concentrated within the uppermost portions of favorable reservoir rocks. The task of the geologist is the location of promising structures in regions where rocks are favorable for the occurrence of the other prerequisites. Drilling a hole is then the only known method of determining whether or not oil is present in the structure. 1. What is mainly dealt with in the passage?A. The formation of oil. B. The formation of rocks.C. The general introduction of geology. D. The roles of geology in finding oil.2. Geology is a natural science and it does NOT study_. A. the minerals in the earths crustB. the rocks in the earths crustC. the evolution and development of the earthD. the origin of the atmosphere surrounding the earth3. One prerequisite for oil to accumulate in quantity is that the oil originates in _.A. a source rockB. a black mudC. the seawaterD. organic compounds4. In the formation of oil, a nonpermeable layer above a reservoir bed is necessary because it can _.A. accelerate the travel speed of the oilB. hinder the oil to move upwardC. help the oil to move upwardD. help people to discover the oil5. Which of the following statements is TRUE?A. Drilling a hole is one of the known methods of determining whether or not oil is present in the structure.B. A geologist usually tries to locate promising structures in regions where rocks are favorable for the occurrence of the other prerequisites.C. An unfavorable structure must exist to concentrate the oil.D. A permeable layer must occur above a reservoir bed.Passage 2In order to talk about the nature of the universe and to discuss questions such as whether it has a beginning or an end, you have to be clear about what a scientific theory is. I shall take the simple-minded view that a theory is just a model of the universe, or a restricted part of it, and a set of rules that relate quantities in the model to observations that we make. It exists only in our minds and does not have any other reality. A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations. For example, Aristotles theory that everything was made out of four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, was simple enough to qualify, but it did not make any definite predictions. On the other hand, Newtons theory of gravity was based on an even simpler model, in which bodies attracted each other with a force that was proportional to a quantity called their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Yet it predicts the motion of the sun, the moon, and the planets to a high degree of accuracy.Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory. In practice, what often happens is that a new theory that is devised is really an extension of the previous theory.The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe. However, the approach most scientists actually follow is to separate the problem into two parts. First, there are the laws that tell us how the universe changes with time. If we know what the universe is like at any one time, these physical laws tell us how it will look at any later time. Second, there is the question of the initial state of the universe. Some people feel that science should be concerned with only the first part; they regard the question of the initial situation as a matter for religion. They would say that God could have started the universe off any way he wanted. That may be so, but in that case he also could have made it develop in a completely arbitrary way. Yet it appears that he chose to make it evolve in a very regular way according to certain laws. It therefore seems equally reasonable to suppose that there are also laws governing the initial state. It turns out to be very difficult to devise a theory to describe the universe all in one go. Instead, we break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories. Each of these partial theories describes and predicts a certain limited class of observations, neglecting the effects of other quantities, or representing them by simple sets of numbers. It may be that this approach is completely wrong. If everything in the universe depends on everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation. Nevertheless, it is certainly the way that we have made progress in the past. The classical example is the Newtonian theory of gravity, which tells us that the gravitational force between two bodies depends only on one number associated with each body, its mass, but is otherwise independent of what the bodies are made of. Thus one does not need to have a theory of the structure and constitution of the sun and the planets in order to calculate their orbits.Today scientists describe the universe on terms of two basic partial theories the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. They are the great intellectual achievements of the first half of this century. The general theory of relativity describes the force of gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, deals with phenomena on extremely small scales, such as a millionth of a millionth of an inch. Unfortunately, however, these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other they cannot both be correct. One of the major endeavors in physics today, is the search for a new theory that will incorporate them both a quantum theory of gravity. We do not yet have such a new theory, and we may still be a long way from having one, but we do already know many of the properties that it must have.6. According to the author, a theory is all of the following EXCEPT for _. A. a model of the universeB. a restricted part of the universeC. a set of rulesD. a reality7. The difference between Aristotles theory and Newtons theory is _.A. Aristotles theory can describe a large class of observations, while Newtons cannot.B. Newtons theory can describe a large class of observations, while Aristotles cannot.C. Aristotles theory can make a definite prediction of the future observations, while Newtons cannot.D. Newtons theory can make a definite prediction of the future observations, while Aristotles cannot.8. The approach adopted by most scientists to devise a theory to describe the universe is _. A. to break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories B. to invent one theory to describe the whole universe C. to combine general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics D. to study the origin of the universe9It is described in Newtons theory of gravity that bodies attracted each other with a force which is _. A. inversely proportional to their mass B. inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them C. proportional to the square of the distance between them D. proportional to the constitution of them10According the passage, the great intellectual achievements of the first half of the 20th century are _. A. Newtons theory of gravity and the general theory of relativity B. Newtons theory of gravity and quantum mechanics C. the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics D. the general theory of relativity and the quantum theory of gravityPassage 3The current energy security system was created in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo to ensure coordination among the industrialized countries in the event of a disruption in supply, encourage collaboration on energy policies, and deter any future use of an “oil weapon” by exporters. Its key elements are the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), whose members are the industrialized countries; strategic stockpiles of oil, including the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves; continued monitoring and analysis of energy markets and policies; and energy conservation and coordinated emergency sharing of supplies in the event of a disruption. The emergency system was set up to offset major disruptions that threatened the global economy and stability, not to manage prices and the commodity cycle. Since the systems inception in the 1970s, a coordinated emergency drawdown of strategic stockpiles has occurred only twice: on the eve of the Gulf War in 1991 and in the autumn of 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.Experience has shown that to maintain energy security countries must abide by several principles. The first and most familiar is what Churchill urged more than 90 years ago: diversification of supply. Multiplying ones supply sources reduces the impact of a disruption in supply from one source by providing alternatives, serving the interests of both consumers and producers, for whom stable markets are a prime concern. But diversification is not enough. A second principle is resilience, a “security margin” in the energy supply system that provides a buffer against shocks and facilitates recovery after disruptions. Resilience can come from many factors, including sufficient spare production capacity, strategic reserves, backup supplies of equipment, adequate storage capacity along the supply chain, and the stockpiling of critical parts for electric power production and distribution, as well as carefully conceived plans for responding to disruptions that may affect large regions. Hence the third principle: recognizing the reality of integration. There is only one oil market, a complex and worldwide system that moves and consumes about 86 million barrels of oil every day. For all consumers, security resides in the stability of this market. Secession is not an option. A fourth principle is the importance of information. High-quality information underpins well-functioning markets. On an international level, the IEA has led the way in improving the flow of information about world markets and energy prospects. That work is being complemented by the new International Energy Forum, which will seek to integrate information from producers and consumers. Information is no less crucial in a crisis, when consumer panics can be instigated by a mixture of actual disruptions, rumors, and fear. In such situations, governments and the private sector should collaborate to counter panics with high-quality, timely information. As important as these principles are, the past several years have highlighted the need to expand the concept of energy security in two critical dimensions: the recognition of globalization of the energy security system, which can be achieved especially by engaging China and India, and the acknowledgement of the fact that the entire energy supply chain needs to be protected.11. The energy security system was established for the following long-term purpose EXCEPT _. A. protecting profits of industrialized countries during Arab oil embargoB. making effective coordination among those industrialized countries C. promoting cooperation in making policies about energyD. preventing oil exporters from using oil as a weapon against other countries12. Which of the following statements about International Energy Agency is NOT true?A. Its headquarter is located in Paris.B. Its members include developed and developing countries.C. It monitors and analyzes the energy market and policies.D. It makes great efforts to save energy and deal with oil disruption.13. The first and foremost thing that both consumers and producers are concerned about is _.A. various supply sourcesB. stable energy marketsC. the largest profitsD. reasonable prices14. Integration, the third principle to maintain energy security, means to _. A. recognize the reality of energy shortageB. guarantee the stability of energy marketC. realize the unity of the worldwide market D. protect ones independent interests 15. The main purpose of this passage is to _.A. convince readers that energy security is importantB. introduce the major energy organizations of U.S.C. inform readers what the energy security system is likeD. present principles for ensuring energy securityPassage 4I spent some of the most exciting days of my life working on the eastern shores of Kenyas Lake Turkana, searching for the fossilized remains of our early ancestors. We did not always find what we wanted, but every day there was much more to discover than the traces of our own predecessors. The fossils, some quite complete, others mere fragments, spoke of another world in which the ancestors of many of todays African mammals roamed in the rich grassland and forest fringes between 1.5 million and 2 million years ago. The environment was not too different from the wetter grasslands of Africa today, but it was full of amazing animals that are now long extinct. One in particular I would have loved to see alive was a short-necked giraffe relative that had huge “antlers”, some with a span across the horns of close to almost 3 meters. There were buffalo-size antelopes with massive curving horns, carnivores that must have looked like saber-toothed lions, two distinct species of hippo and at least two types of elephants. We may never know the full extent of this incredible mammalian diversity, but there were probably more than twice as many species a million years ago as there are today. That was true not just for Africa. The fossil record tells the same story everywhere. Most of lifes experiments have ended in extinction. It is estimated that more than 95% of the species that have existed over the past 600 million years