WILD WEATHERMAN

Name: Sam Champion

Hot job: TV Weatherman

Where: ABC-TV, New York City

When you were a child, did you plan to forecast wind, rain, and snow on TV?

I wanted to be a foreign journalist. I took courses in weather science at Eastern Kentucky University, but I majored in broadcasting news.

How did you finally become a weatherman?

My first job in the early 1980s was at the local TV station in Paducah, Kentucky. I did everything from turning on the lights in the morning to writing and delivering morning news. I put together weather forecasts, and became interested in them.

Back then, how did you forecast weather?

Independent companies collected computer information that showed, for example, how a single weather system might split into snow or snow mixed with rain. The information was often opposite and the job of a weatherman was to study the information and make the best educated guess about the storm.

Has weather forecasting changed much with new technology?

Advanced computers, satellites, and Doppler radar (sound waves used to track storms) have made forecasting more exact. But we still know very little about how weather is shaped. So far, we just have theories.

Any advice for children who'd like to become weather scientists?

To me, weather is the most exciting field in the world. There are still so many more questions about weather than answers. After all, if we can't foresee floods or hurricanes, how safe a society are we? Weather forecasting is wide open for scientists who love to solve puzzling problems. The next generation of meteorologists (weather scientists) will unlock many of Earth's weather secrets. So get a general knowledge of Earth science, and study meteorology in college.

Thanks, Sam.

Judging from the writing style, the text is _________.

A．a diary               B．an interview  

C．a news story           D．an announcement

As a child, ABC-TV's Sam Champion wanted to be a____________.

   A. space scientist          B．weatherman 

C. news reporter           D．meteorologist

Present weather forecasting technology___________.

A．has made weather report more exact than ever

　B．is still not perfect

　C．hasn't changed much in the last 50 years

　D．both A and B

The study of weather science is called____________.

A．meteorology   B．forecasting   C．geography   D．Earth science

It is pretty much a one-way street. While it may be common for university researchers to try their luck in the commercial world, there is very little traffic in the opposite direction. Pay has always been the biggest deterrent, as people with families often feel they cannot afford the drop in salary when moving to a university job. For some industrial scientists, however, the attractions of academia (学术界) are more important than any financial considerations.
　　Helen Lee took a 70% cut in salary when she moved from a senior post in Abbott Laboratories to a medical department at the University of Cambridge. Her main reason for returning to academia in the middle of her career was to take advantage of the greater freedom to choose research questions.
　　The effect of a salary cut is probably less serious for a scientist in the early stages of a career. Guy Grant, now a research associate at the Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics at the University of Cambridge, spent two years working for a pharmaceutical (制药的) company before returning to university as a post-doctoral(博士后的) researcher. He took a 30% salary cut but felt it worthwhile for the greater intellectual opportunities.
　　Higher up the ladder, where a pay cut is usually more significant, the demand for scientists with a wealth of experience in industry is forcing universities to make the transition (转换) to academia more attractive, according to Lee. Industrial scientists tend to receive training that academics do not, such as how to manage budgets and negotiate contracts. They are also well placed to bring something extra to their teaching that will help students get a job when they graduate, says Lee, perhaps experience in manufacturing practice or product development. “Only a small number of undergraduates will continue in an academic career. So someone leaving university who already has the skills needed to work in an industrial lab has far more potential in the job market than someone who has spent all their time on a narrow research project.”
【小题1】By “a one-way street” (Line 1, Para. 1), the author means ______.

A．university researchers know little about the commercial world

B．there is little exchange between industry and academia

C．few industrial scientists would quit to work in a university

D．few university professors are willing to do industrial research

【小题2】The underlined word “deterrent” (Line 3, Para. 1) most probably refers to something that ______.

A．keeps someone from taking action

B．encourages someone to succeed

C．attracts people’s attention

D．brings someone a financial burden

【小题3】What was Helen Lee’s major consideration when she changed her job in the middle of her career?

A．Flexible working hours.	B．Her research interests.
C．Peaceful life on campus.	D．Her fame in academia.

【小题4】What contribution can industrial scientists make when they come to teach in a university?

A．Increase its graduates’ competitiveness in the job market.

B．Develop its students’ potential in research.

C．Help to get financial support from industry.

D．Get more students interested in the field of industry.

At the beginning of my 8：00 a．m．class one Monday at University of Nevada,Las Vegas(UNLV)，I cheerfully asked my students     their weekend had been．“Not been very good”，one young man said．He'd had his wisdom teeth      ．The young man then went on to ask me why I    seemed to be so cheerful．His question reminded me of     I′d read somewhere before：”Every morning when you get up，you have a      about how you want to approach life that day”，I said．“I choose to be cheerful”．

“Let me give you an     ”，I continued．The other 60 students in the class      their chatter and began to listen．one day,my car died on the way．I called AAA and asked them to send a      ．The secretary in the Provost’S office asked me what had happened．”This is my       day”， I replied,smiling．”Your Car       and today is your lucky day?”She Was       ．”What do you mean?”“I live 17 miles from here”，I replied．”My car     have gone wrong anywhere along the freeway．It didn’t．Instead，it went wrong in the       place：off the freeway,within walking distance of here．I’m     able to teach my class，and I’ve been able to arrange for the tow truck to     me after class．”The secretary’s eyes opened wide，and then she smiled．

  I scanned the 60 faces in the lecture hall．     the early hour,no one seemed to be asleep．Somehow,my story had     them．Or maybe it Wasn’t the story     ．It had all started with a student's       that I Was cheerful．A wise mail once said：”Who you are      louder to me than anything you can say”．I suppose it must  be so．

1.A．how        B．what                         C．whether        D．where

2.A．pulled      B．brought              C．taken          D．removed

3.A．seldom     B．always                  C．occasionally    D．ever

4.A．something   B．nothing              C．anything       D．everything

5.A．decision     B．chance              C．choice         D．destination

6.A．excuse　　　B．explanation      C．instruction　　  D．example

7.A．stopped　　 B．interrupted      C．disturbed　　   D．prevented

8.A．truck　　　 B．tractor                C．secretary　　   D．policeman

9.A．strange　　 B．terrible               C．lucky　　      D．pleasant

10.A．cuts up　　B．breaks up                C．breaks down　　D．tears down

11.A．cheerful　　B．doubtful                C．puzzled　　    D．worried

12.A．could　　 B．must                          C．should　　     D．would

13.A．wrong　　 B．proper               C．perfect　　     D．smooth

14.A．thus　　   B．still                           C．hardly　　      D．even

15.A．pick　　   B．send                         C．meet　　       D．visit

16.A．Despite　　B．Although                 C．Since　　       D．Though

17.A．taught　　 B．touched                      C．educated　      D.excited

18.A．after all　  B．in all                         C．above all　      D．at all

19.A．motivation　B．inspiration             C．observation　    D．appreciation

20.A．says　     B．speaks                C．talks　        　D．tells

 

You never see him, but they're with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to endure almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They're known as the black box.
　When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean on June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine (潜水艇) detected the box's homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.
　In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the box was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.
　Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots' conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments. Placed in an insulated (隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can stand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉. When submerged, they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they're still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane's black boxes were never recovered.
【小题1】What does the author say about the black box?

A．It is an indispensable device on an airplane.

B．The idea for its design comes from a comic book.

C．Its ability to avoid disasters is incredible.

D．It ensures the normal functioning of an airplane.

【小题2】What does the underlined word in the 3rd paragraph mean?　

A．witness

B．experience

C．resist

D．ensure

【小题3】Why was the black box redesigned in 1965?

A．New materials became available by that time.

B．Too much space was needed for its installation.

C．The early models didn't provide the needed data.

D．The early models often got damaged in the crash.

【小题4】What do we know about the black boxes from Air France Flight 447?

A．There is an urgent need for them to be reconstructed.

B．There is still a good chance of their being recovered.

C．They have stopped sending homing signals.

D．They were destroyed somewhere near Brazil.

　More surprising, perhaps, than the current difficulties of traditional marriage is the fact that marriage itself is alive and thriving（旺盛的）. As Skolnich notes, Americans are a marrying people: relative to Europeans, more of us marry and we marry at a younger age. Moreover, after a decline（衰退）in the early 1970s, the rate of marriage in the United States is now increasing. Even the divorce（离婚）rate needs to be taken in this pro-marriage context: some 80 percent of divorced individuals remarry. Thus, marriage remains by far the preferred way of life for the vast majority of the people in our society.

　　What has changed more than marriage is the nuclear family. Twenty-five years ago, the typical American family consisted of the husband, the wife, and two or three children. Now, there are many marriages in which couples have decided not to have any children, and there are many marriages where at least some of the children are from the wife’s previous marriage, or the husband’s, or both. Sometimes these children spend all of their time with one parent from the former marriage; sometimes they are shared between the two former spouses（配偶）．

　　Thus, one can find every type of family arrangement. There are marriages without children; marriages with children from only the present marriages; marriages with“full-time”children from both the present and former marriages; marriages with“full-time”children from the present marriage and“part-time”children from former marriages. There are stepfathers, stepmothers, half-brothers and half-sisters. It is not all that unusual for a child to have four parents and eight grandparents! These are enormous changes from the traditional nuclear family. But even so, even in the midst of all this, there remains one constant: most Americans spend most of their adult lives married.

By calling Americans a marrying people the writer means that ________.

　　A. Americans are more traditional than Europeans

　　B. Americans expect more out of marriage than Europeans

　　C. there are more married couples in the USA than in Europe

　　D. more of Americans, as compared with Europeans, prefer marriage and they accept it at a younger age

Divorced Americans ________ .

　　A. prefer the way they live                   B. will most likely remarry

　　C. have lost interest in marriage               D. are the majority of people in the society

Which of the following can be presented as the picture of today’s American families？

　　A. Different types of family arrangements have become socially acceptable.

　　B. A typical American family consists of only a husband and a wife.

　　C. Americans prefer to have more kids than before.

　　D. There are no nuclear families any more.

Though great changes have taken place in the structure of American families, ________ .

　　A. the majority of Americans still have faith in marriage

　　B. the functions of marriage remain unchanged

　　C. most Americans prefer a second marriage

D. most Americans prefer to be single