Question 66 — 70 are based on the following passage.

The idea of test-tube babies may make you either delighted at the wonders of modern medicine or irritated while considering the moral, or technological implications of starting life in a laboratory. But if you’ve ever been pregnant yourself, one thing is certain: You wonder what it’s like to carry a test-tube baby. Are these pregnancies normal? Are the babies normal?

The earliest answer come from Australia, where a group of medical experts at the Queen Victoria Medical Center in Melbourne have taken a look at the continent’s first nine successful invitro pregnancies. The Australians report that the pregnancies themselves seemed to have proceeded according to plan, but at birth some unusual trends did show up. Seven of the nine babies turned out to be girls. Six of the nine were delivered by Caesarean section. And one baby, a twin, was born with a serious heart defect and a few days later developed life-threatening problems.

What does it all mean? Even the doctors don’t know for sure, because the numbers are so small. The proportion of girls to boys is high, but until there are many more test-tube babies no one will know whether that’s something that just happened to be like that or something special that happens when egg meets sperm in a test tube instead of a fallopian tube. The same thing is true of the single heart defect. It usually shows up in only 15 out of 60,000 births in that part of Australia, but the fact that it occurred in one out of nine test-tube babies does not necessarily mean that they are at special risk. One thing the doctors can explain is the high number of Caesareans. Most of the mothers were older, had long histories of fertility problems and in some cases had had surgery on the fallopian tubes, all of which made them likely candidates for Caesareans anyway.

The Australian researchers report that they are quite encouraged. All the babies are now making normal progress, even the twin with the birth defects.

66. What concern will the test-tube baby raise according to the passage?

A. Whether the pregnancies of test-tube babies would be normal.

B. Whether the test-tube babies would be encouraged.

C. Why the proportion of defected babies is so high.

D. Why the number of Caesareans is so high.

67. What does the word “invitro” underlined in Paragraph 2 most probably mean?

A. Normal. B. Test-tube. C. Built-in. D. Formal

68. Which of the following statements about the experiment mentioned in the passage is true?

A. Only the twins are defected.

B. Most of the babies are delivered by means of Caesarean.

C. There are some troubles during all mothers’ pregnancies.

D. One baby appears to be abnormal.

69. Which of the following explanations regarding the high number of Caesarean operations is NOT true?

A. Some mothers have passed the best age for a natural delivery.

B. Some mothers have fertility problems.

C. Some mothers favor the operations of this type.

D. Some mothers have had surgical operations on their fallopian tubes.

70. What is the author’s tone in this passage?

A. Depressed. B. Optimistic C. Opposing. D. Negative

Questions 71 — 80 are based on the following passage.

The ocean bottom — a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of the Earth — is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharted. Until about a century ago, the deep-ocean floor was completely inaccessible, hidden beneath waters averaging over 3,600 meters deep. Totally without light and subjected to intense pressures hundreds of times greater than at the Earth’s surface, the deep-ocean bottom is a hostile environment to humans, in some ways as forbidding and remote as the void of outer space.

Although researchers have taken samples of deep-ocean rocks and sediments for over a century, the first detailed global investigation of the ocean bottom did not actually start until 1968, with the beginning of the National Science Foundation’s Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP). Using techniques first developed for the offshore oil and gas industry, the DSDP’s drill ship, the Glomar Challenger, was able to maintain a steady position on the ocean’s surface and drill in very deep waters, extracting samples of sediments and rock from the ocean floor.

The Glomar Challenger completed 96 voyages in a 15-year research program that ended in November 1983. During this time, the vessel logged 600,000 kilometers and took almost 20,000 core samples of seabed sediments and rocks at 624 drilling sites around the world. The Glomar Challenger’s core samples have allowed geologists to reconstruct what the planet looked like hundreds of millions of years ago and to calculate what it will probably look like millions of years in the future. Today, largely on the strength of evidence gathered during the Glomar Challenger’s voyages, nearly all earth scientists agree on the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift that explain many of the geological processes that sharp the Earth.

The cores of sediment drilled by the Glomar Challenger have also yielded information critical to understanding the world’s past climates. Deep –ocean sediments provide a climatic record stretching back hundreds of millions of years, because they are largely isolated from the mechanical erosion and the intense chemical and biological activity that rapidly destroy much land-based evidence of past climates. This record has already provided insights into the patterns and causes of past climatic change — information that may be used to predict future climates.

71. The author refers to the ocean bottom as a “frontier” in Paragraph 1 because it ____.

A. is not a popular area for scientific research

B. contains a wide variety of life forms

C. attracts courageous explorers

D. is an unknown territory

72. The word “inaccessible” underlined in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ____.

A. unrecognizable B. unreachable C. unusable D. unsafe

73. The author mentions “outer space” underlined in Paragraph 1 because ____.

A. the Earth’s climate million of years ago was similar to conditions in outer space

B. it is similar to the ocean floor in being alien to the human environment

C. rock formations in outer space are similar to those found on the ocean floor

D. techniques used by scientists to explore outer space were similar to those used in ocean exploration

74. Which of the following is true of the Glomar Challenger?

A. It is a type of submarine.

B. It is an ongoing project.

C. It has gone on over 100 voyages.

D. It made its first DSDP voyage in 1968.

75. The word “extracting” underlined in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ____.

A. breaking B. locating C. removing D. analyzing

76. The Deep Sea Drilling Project was significant because it was ____.

A. an attempt to find new sources of oil and gas

B. the first extensive exploration of the ocean bottom

C. composed of geologists from all over the world

D. funded entirely by the gas and oil industry

77. The word “strength” underlined in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ____.

A. basis B. purpose C. discovery D. endurance

78. The word “they” underlined in Paragraph 4 refers to ____.

A. years B. climates C. sediments D. cores

79. Deep-ocean sediments provide better information about the world’s past climate because they ____.

A. are well protected B. have land-based evidence

C. are in isolation D. have a longer history

80. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as being a result of the Deep Sea Drilling Project?

A. Geologists were able to determine the Earth’s appearance hundreds of millions of years ago.

B. Two geological theories because more widely accepted.

C. Information was revealed about the Earth’s past climatic changes.

D. Geologists observed forms of marine life never before seen.

KEYS：

A 66. A 67. B 68. B 69. C 70. B

71. D 72. B 73. B 74. D 75. C 76. B 77. A 78. C 79. A 80. D

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