学位英语

阅读理解第一篇

Underground Coal Fires a Looming Catastrophe

Coal burning deep underground in China, India and Indonesia is threatening the environment and human life, scientists have warned, these large-scale underground blazes cause the ground temperature to heat up and kill surrounding vegetation, produce greenhouse gases and can even ignite forest first, a panel of scientists told the annual meeting of the American Association For the Advancement of Science in Denver. The resulting release of poisonous elements like arsenic and mercury can also pollute local water sources and soils, they warned.

“Coal fires are a global catastrophe,” said Associate Professor Glenn Stracher of East Georgia College in Swainsboro, USA, But surprisingly few people know about them.

Coal can heat up on its own, and eventually catch fire and burn, if there is a continuous oxygen supply. The heat produced is not cause to disappear and under the right combinations of sunlight and oxygen, can trigger spontaneous catching fire and burning. This can occur underground, in coal stockpiles, abandoned mines or even as coal is transported. Such fires in China consume up to 200 million tones of coal per year, delegates were told. In comparison, the U.S. economy consumes about one billion tones of coal annually, said Stracher, whose analysis of the likely impact of coal fires has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Coal Ecology. Once underway, coal fires can burn for decades, even centuries. In the process, they release large volumes of greenhouse gases poisonous fumes and black particles into the atmosphere.

The members of the panel discussed the impact these fires may be having on global and regional climate change, cand agreed that the underground nature of the fires makes them difficult to protect. One of the members of the panel, Assistant Professor Paul Van Dijk of the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth observation in the Netherlands, has been working with the Chinese government to detect and monitor fires in the northern regions of the country.

Ultimately, the remote sensing and other techniques should allow scientists to estimate how much carbon dioxide these fires are emitting. One suggested method of containing the fires was presented by Gary Colaizzi, of the engineering firm Goodson, which has developed a heat-resistant grout (a thin mortar used to fill cracks and crevices), which is designed to be pumped into the coal fire to cut off the oxygen supply.

1. According to the first paragraph, one of the warnings given by the scientists is that

A. underground fires loom large in the forests.

B. coal burning deep underground is found in China.

C. poisonous elements released by the underground fires can pollute water sources.

D. arsenic and mercury are the most poisonous elements to water sources.

「答案」：C

2. According to the third paragraph, what will happen when the underground heat does not disappear?

A. Coal heats up on its own and catches fire and burns.

B. The underground oxygen will be used up.

C. Poisonous fumes and greenhouse gases will be accumulated underground.

D. There will be an increase of abandoned mines.

「答案」：A

3. What did Stracher analyze in his article published in the International Journal of Coal Ecology?

A. Annual consumption of coal in U.S.

B. Annual consumption of coal in China.

C. How long coal fires has lasted in the northern region of China.

D. Coal fires can have an impact on the environment.

「答案」：D

4. Which of the following statements about Paul Van Dijk is Not true?

A. He was one of the scientists who have warned against the threats of underground fires.

B. He has detected and monitored underground fires in Netherlands.

C. He has worked with the Chinese government on the underground fires issue.

D. He works for a research institute in the Netherlands.

「答案」：B

5. According to the fifth paragraph, what is the suggested method to control under ground fires?

A. Using remote sensing technique.

B. Controlling the release of carbon dioxide.

C. Making the soil heat resistant.

D. Cutting off the oxygen supply.

「答案」：D

阅读理解第二篇the northern lights

the sun is stormy（狂暴的） and has its own kind of weather. it is so hot and active that even the sun’s gravity cannot hold its atmosphere in check（控制，支配）! energy flows away from the sun toward the earth in a stream of electrified particles（电粒子） that move at speeds around a million miles per hour. these particles are called plasma（等离子体）, and the stream of plasma coming from the sun is called the solar wind. the more active the sun, the stronger the solar wind.

the solar wind constantly streams toward the earth, but don’t worry because a protective magnetic field（磁场） surrounds our planet. the same magnetic field that makes your compass point north also steer（引向） the particles from the sun to the north and south poles. the charged particles become trapped in magnetic belts around the earth. when a large blast of solar wind crashes into the earth’s magnetic field, the magnetic field first gets squeezed and then the magnetic field lines break and reconnect（断开又闭合）.

the breaking and reconnecting of the magnetic field lines can cause atomic particles（原子粒子） called electrons（电子） trapped in the belts to fall into the earth’s atmosphere at the poles. as the electrons fall to the earth, they collide with gas molecules（分子） in the atmosphere, creating flashes of light in the sky. each atmospheric gas glows a different color. oxygen and nitrogen glows red and green and nitrogen glows violet-purple. as these various colors glow and dance in the night sky, they create the northern lights and the southern lights.

watching auroras is fun and exciting, but normally you can only see them in places far north like alaska and canada. the movement of the aurora across the sky is usually slow enough to easily follow with your eyes but they can also pulsate（跳动）, flicker, or even move like waves. during solar maximum, auroras are seen as far south as florida, even mexico!

auroras often seem to be very close to the ground, but the lowest aurora is still about 100 kilometers above the ground, a distance much higher than clouds are formed or airplanes can fly. a typical aurora band can be thousands of kilometers long, a few hundred kilometers high, but only a few hundred meters thick.

we hope you are able to travel to far-north places like the arctic circle and see the northern lights at least once during your lifetime. we know you will never forget it!

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