第4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。请根据短文内容，为每题确定1个最佳选项。
第一篇
Experts Call for Local and Regional Control of Sites for Radioactive Waste
The withdrawal of Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a potential nuclear waste repository has reopened the debate over how and where to dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste. In an article in the July 10 issue of Science, University of Michigan geologist Rodney Ewing and Princeton University nuclear physicist Frank von Hippel argue that, although federal agencies should set standards and issue licenses for the approval of nuclear facilities, local communities and states should have the final approval on the siting of these facilities. The authors propose the development of multiple sites that would service the regions where nuclear reactors are located.
“The main goal…, should be to provide the Unied States with multiple process that requires acceptance by host communities and states,” the authors write.
Ewing and yon Hippel also analyze the reasons why Yucca Mountain, selected by Congress in 1987 as the only site to be investigated for long-term nuclear waste disposal, finally was shelved after more than three decades of often controversial debate. The reasons include the site’s geological problems, management problems, important changes in the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard, unreliable funding and the failure to involve local communities in the decision-making process.
Going forward, efforts should be directed at locating storage facilities in the nation’s northeastern, southeastern, midwestern and western regions, and states within a given region should be responsible for developing solutions that suit their particular circumstances. Transportation of nuclear waste over long distances, which was a concern with the Yucca Mountain site, would be less of a problem because temporary storage or geological disposal sites could be located closer to reactors.
“This regional approach would be similar to the current approach in Europe, where spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste from about 150 reactors and reprocessing plants is to be moved to a number of geological repositories in a variety of rock types,” said Rodney Ewing, who has written extensively about the impact of nuclear waste management on the environment and who has analyzed safety assessment criteria for the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
31. Which of the following words can best substitute the word “withdrawal” in the first paragraph?
A. Retirement. B. Canceling. C. Replaced. D. Disposal.
32. According to Rodney Ewing and Frand von Hippel, where to locate nuclear facilities
A. should be approved by the federal government.
B. should be approved by local people and states.
C. should be approved by Congress.
D. is not an important issue.
33. What is NOT true about the 1987 decision by Congress concerning siting of nuclear waste disposal?
A. Yucca Mountain was selected as the only site for a nuclear waste repository.
B. The selection of Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste disposal caused much controversy.
C. The decision by Congress was put aside due to a number of problems.
D. The decision by Congress was accepted by local communities.
34. What does the author of the essay in the fourth paragraph want to say?
A. Efforts should be made to solve the problems of transportation of nuclear waste over long distance.
B. Efforts should be made to develop as many nuclear disposal sites in the US as possible.
C. Efforts should be made to develop nuclear disposal sites to suit the circumstances of the region.
D. Efforts should be made to build up temporary nuclear disposal sites as possible.
35. What is meant by “regional approach” as mentioned in the last paragraph?
A. Waste disposal sites are located close to reactors and in places suitable for the regional circumstances.
B. Geological repositories are located in a variety of rock types.
C. Spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste is moved to developing countries.
D. Waste disposal sites are located far away from reactors.
第二篇
Teaching Math,Teaching Anxiety
In a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, the psychologists at the University of Chicagol Sian Beilock and Susan Levine found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and what female students learn: If a female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills,then her female students are more likely to believe that boys are better than girls at math.
“If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers in later grades,it may create a snowball effect on their math achievement said Levine. In other words, girls may end up learning math anxiety from their teachers. The study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are, then these girls may not do as well as they would have if they were more confident.
Just as students find certain subjects to be difficult, teachers can find certain subjects to be difficult to learn-and teach. The subject of math can be particularly difficult for everyone. Researchers use the word “anxiety” to describe such feelings: anxiety is uneasiness or worry.
The new study found that when a teacher has anxiety about math, that feeling can influence how her female students feel about math. The study involved 65 girls, 52 boys and 17 first- and second-grade teachers in elementary schools in the Midwest. The students took math achievement tests at the beginning and end of the school year, and the researchers compared the scores.
The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed that a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers: To find out which teachers were anxious about math,the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt. A teacher who got nervous looking at the numbers on a sales receipt, for example,was probably anxious about math.
Boys, on average, were unaffected by a teacher’s anxiety. On average,girls with math-anxious teachers scored lower on the end-of-the-year math tests than other girls in the study did. Plus,on the test showing whether someone thought a math superstar had to be a boy, 20 girls showed feeling that boys would be better at math-and all of these girls had been taught by female teachers who had math anxiety.
“This is an interesting study,but the results need to be interpreted as preliminary and in need of replication with a larger sample,” said David Geary, a psychologist at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
36. What is the result of the research at the University of Chicago,according to the first paragraph?
A. Girls comfortable with their own math skills are better than boys at math.
B. Girls uncomfortable with their own math skills are not as good as boys at math.
C. Female teachers’ math skills have influence over girl students’ math skills.
D. Female teachers’ confidence in their math skills is related to girl’s math skills.
37. What is implied in the third paragraph?
A. Math teachers,like math learners,do not like the subject due to its difficulty.
B. A difficult subject like math may affect teachers’ confidence in teaching the subject.
C. Teachers are more anxious teaching math than their students learning math.
D. Math is so difficult that no teachers like to teach it.
38. According to the experiment,those teachers were probably anxious about math when they felt
A. nervous memorizing the numbers of a sales receipt.
B. helpless saving the numbers of a sales receipt.
C. uneasy reading the numbers of a sales receipt.
D. hopeless filling in the numbers of a sales report.
39. The sixth paragraph tells us that the research findings
A. prove a strong link between female teachers’ math anxiety and their female students’ math achievements.
B. show that male students are less likely to be affected by their math anxiety than female students.
C. provide strong evidence that math superstars are more likely to be males than females.
D. discover a strong link between teachers’ math anxiety and their students’ math achievements.
40. David Geary thinks that
A. the study is interesting but it is based on unreliable research process.
B. the research results need to be retested based on a larger sample.
C. the research results need to be reinterpreted to be meaningful.
D. the study is well based and produces significant results.
第三篇
Hurricane Katrina
A hurricane is a fiercely powerful, rotating form of tropical storm that can be 124 to l, 240 miles in diameter. The term hurricane is derived from Hurican, the name of a native American storm god. Hurricanes are typical of a calm central region of low pressure between 12 to 60 miles in diameter, known as the eye. They occur in tropical regions. Over its lifetime, one of these storms can release as much energy as 10, 000 nuclear bombs.
The seed for hurricane formation is a cluster of thunderstorms over warm tropical waters. Hurricanes can only form and be fed when the sea-surface temperature exceeds 27℃ and the surrounding atmosphere is calm. These requirements are met between June and November in the northern hemisphere.
Under these conditions, large quantities of water evaporate and condense into clouds and rain——releasing heat in the process. It is this heat energy, combined with the rotation of the Earth that drives a hurricane.
When the warm column of air from the sea surface first begins to rise, it causes an area of low pressure. This in turn creates wind as air is drawn into the area. This spinning wind drags up more moisture-laden air from the sea surface in a process that swells the storm. Cold air falls back to the ocean surface through the eye and on the outside of the storm.
Initially，when wind speeds reach 23 miles per hour，these mild，wet and grey weather systems are known as depressions. Hurricane Katrina formed in this way over the south—eastern Bahamas on 23 August 2005. Katrina has had a devastating impact on the Gulf Coast of the US，leaving a disaster zone of 90, 000 square miles in its wake-almost the size of the UK. Thousands have been killed or injured and more than half a million people have been displaced in a humanitarian crisis of a scale not seen in the US since the great depression. The cost of the damage may top $100 billion.
41. What is the eye of a hurricane?
A. A native American storm god.
B. A rotating form of tropical storm that can be 124 to 1, 240 miles in diameter.
C. A calm central region of low pressure between 12 to 60 miles in diameter.
D. A storm that can release as much energy as 10, 000 nuclear bombs.
42. Which of the following is NOT the “requirements” mentioned in the second paragraph?
A. The tropical waters are warm and calm.
B. The sea-surface temperature exceeds 27℃.
C. There are thunderstorms over warm tropical waters.
D The atmosphere surrounding the sea is calm.
43. Which of the following is the best explanation of the word “drive” in the third paragraph?
A. To guide, control or direct.
B. To force to go through or push in.
C. To supply the motive force or power and cause to function.
D. To force to move in a particular direction.
44. What does the warm air mentioned in the fourth paragraph produce when it is rising from the sea-surface?
A. High pressure.
B. Low pressure.
C. Wind.
D. Cold air.
45. What is NOT true of Hurricane Katrina according to the last paragraph?
A .The area affected is almost the size of the UK.
B. It 1eft a disaster zone of 90, 000 square miles.
C. Half a million people are forced to leave the area.
D. The humanitarian crisis is as serious as that of the great depression.
第5部分：补全短文(第46～50题，每题2分，共10分)
下面的短文有5处空白，短文后有6个句子，其中5个取自短文，请根据短文内容将其分别放回原有位置，以恢复文章原貌。
Musical Training Can Improve Communication Skills
American scientists say musical training seems to improve communication skills and language retardation. They found that developing musical skills involves the same process in the brain as learning how to speak. The scientists believe that could help children with learning disabilities.
46 . She says musical training involves putting together different kinds of information, such as hearing music, looking at musical notes, touching an instrument and watching other musicians. This process is not much different from learning how to speak. 47 .
She further explains musical training and learning to speak each make us think about what we are doing. She says speech and music pass through a structure of the nervous system called the brain stem. 48 . Until recently, experts have thought the brain stem could not be developed or changed. But Professor Krauss and her team found that musical training can improve a person’s brain stem activity.
The study involved individuals with different levels of musical ability. They were asked to wear an electrical device that measures brain activity. The individuals wore the electrode while they watched a video of someone speaking and a person playing a musical instrument — the cello. 49 . The study found that the more years of training people had, the more sensitive they were to the sound and rhythm of the music. Those who were involved in musical activities were the same people in whom the improvement of sensory events was the strongest. 50 . She says using music to improve listening skills could mean they hear sentences and understand facial expressions better.
A. Both involve different senses.
B. Nina Kraus is a neurobiologist(神经生物学家)at Northwestern University in Illinois.
C. Some disabled children attended the musical training Class.
D. It shows the importance of musical training to children with learning disabilities.
E. Professor Krauss says cellos have sound qualities similar to some of the sounds that are important with speech.
F. The brain stem controls our ability to hear.
