Satellites(卫星) are an important part of our ordinary lives．For example, the information for weather forecasts is sent by satellite．Some satellites have cameras which take photographs of the Earth to show how clouds are moving．Satellites are also used to connect our international phone calls．
Computer connections of the World Wide Web and Internet also use satellites. Many of our TV programs come to us through satellites．Airplane pilots also sometimes use a satellite to help them find their exact location．
We use satellites to send television pictures from one part of the world to another．They are usually 35，880 kilometers above the equator（赤道）．Sometimes we can see a satellite in the sky and it seems to stay in the same place．This is because it is moving around the world at 11，000 kilometers an hour—exactly the same speed that the earth rotates．A satellite must orbit the Earth with its antennae(天线)facing the earth．Sometimes, it moves away from its orbit（轨道），So there are little rockets on it which are used to put the satellite back in the right position．This usually happens about every five or six days．
Space is not empty! Every week, more and more satellites are sent into space to orbit the Earth．A satellite usually works for about 10-12 years．Satellites which are broken are sometimes repaired by astronauts or sometimes brought back to Earth to be repaired．Often，very old or broken satellites are left in space to orbit the Earth for a very long time．This is very serious because some satellites use nuclear power and they can crash（撞）into each other．
【小题1】Which of the following is NOT done by satellites according to the passage?

A．Sending information for weather forecast．

B．Taking photographs of the Earth．

C．Sending TV pictures．

D．Providing food for airplane pilots．

【小题2】What’s the speed the earth rotates at?

A．35,880 kilometers per hour．

B．335,880 kilometers per hour．

C．11,000 kilometers per hour．

D．110,000 kilometers per hour

【小题3】Why does the satellite move around the world at the same speed as the Earth rotates?

A．In order to take photographs．

B．In order to stay in a certain position in the orbit．

C．In order to move away from its orbit．

D．In order to send television pictures．

【小题4】What does the underlined word “This” in the 3rd paragraph refer to?

A．A satellite．

B．A little rocket．

C．A satellite seems to stay in the same place in the sky．

D．The satellite puts the rockets in the right position．

Thinking is something you choose to do as a fish chooses to live in water. To be human is to think. But thinking may come naturally without your knowing how you do it. Thinking about thinking is the key to critical（批判性的）thinking. When you think critically, you take control of your thinking processes（过程）. Otherwise, you might be controlled by the ideas of others. Indeed, critical thinking is at the heart of education.
The word "critical" here has a special meaning. It does not mean taking one view against another view, as when someone criticizes another person for doing something wrong. The nature of critical thinking is thinking beyond the easily seen—beyond the pictures on TV, the untrue reports in the newspapers, and the faulty reasoning (错误的推理).
Critical thinking is an attitude as much as an activity. If you are curious about life and desire to dig deeper into it, you are a critical thinker; if you find pleasure in deep thinking about different ideas, characters, and facts, you are a critical thinker.
Activities of the mind and higher-order reasoning are processes of deep and careful consideration. They take time, and do not go hand in hand with the fast speed in today's world, fast foods, instant coffee, and self-developing film. If you are among the people who believe that speed is a measure of intelligence, you may learn something new from a story about Albert Einstein. The first time Banish Hoffman, a scientist, was to discuss his work with Albert Einstein, Hoffman was too nervous to speak. But Einstein immediately put Hoffman at ease by saying, "Please go slowly, I don't understand things quickly."
【小题1】Critical thinking is important to us because if we do not think critically,__________.

A．it will be hard for us to think naturally and fast

B．we will follow the ideas of others naturally

C．we might be controlled by other people's ideas

D．we might be fooled by other people's ideas

【小题2】If you are a critical thinker, you will________.

A．criticize other people for their mistakes	B．trust the reports in the newspapers
C．take one view against another view	D．think deeply about different ideas

【小题3】In the last paragraph, "something new" suggests that________.

A．the smarter you are, the faster you do things

B．intelligence is not decided by speed

C．speed can improve intelligence

D．the faster you do things, the smarter you become

【小题4】What would be the best title for the passage?

A．Understanding Critical Thinking	B．Thinking and Critical Thinking
C．Thinking Natural and Human	D．Thinking Fast Means Intelligence

   Storing food is common in members of the crow family. A new study tested the birds outside for this naturally occurring behavior, which may have evolved（进化）specifically because it gives crows a survival advantage. Some crow species are known to naturally use tools to recover food. So the researchers tested whether the birds could store and recover a tool so they could use it to find their food after a gap of 17 hours — something we wouldn’t expect them to do naturally. But they were able to instantly select the tool out of a number of unnecessary items.

In another experiment, the researchers taught crows to select a token（礼品券）from a number of items so that they could then exchange it for food. Again, the birds then showed that they could plan for the future using this new behaviour. This is different from all of the previous studies in future planning, which have focused on naturally occurring behaviour. For example, we know that chimpanzees select, transport and save appropriate tools for future needs.

These studies have shown that animals can plan for the future — but they leave an important question open for debate. Are animals only able to plan to use abilities that have evolved to give them a specific advantage, or can they flexibly and intelligently apply planning behaviour across various actions? Most critics would say the former, as the animals were tested in naturally occurring behaviour.

But the new research provides the first evidence that animal species can plan for the future using behaviour that doesn’t typically occur in nature. This supports the view that at least some recognitive（认知的）abilities in animals don’t evolve just in response to specific problems. Instead, it suggests that animals can apply these behaviour flexibly across problems in a similar way to humans. We need to study how flexible behaviour evolved. Then we might be able to see how crows’ ability to plan for the future fits in with their broader cognitive powers.

【小题1】What’s the new finding about some crows according to Paragraph 1?

A．They can store food.	B．They can use tools to recover food.
C．They can store and recover tools.	D．They can select and store food.

【小题2】What are crows trained by researchers to do when given a token?

A．Reject it casually.	B．Exchange it for food.
C．Save it as their food.	D．Build a nest with it.

【小题3】What can we infer about the studies that animals can plan for the future?

A．They are debatable.	B．They are disappointing.
C．They are logical.	D．They are convincing.

【小题4】What can be learned about flexible behaviour in animals?

A．It develops only with age.	B．It is unclear how it evolved.
C．No animals but crows benefit from it.	D．It helps plan for the future.

A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.
“It’s extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.
They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it’s connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.
While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.
Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”
【小题1】The difficulty the team of engineers met with while making the robotic fly was that __________.

A．they had no model in their mind

B．they did not have sufficient time

C．they had no ready-made components

D．they could not assemble the components

【小题2】It can be inferred from paragraphs 3 and 4 that the robotic fly __________.

A．consists of a flight device and a control system

B．can just fly in limited areas at the present time

C．can collect information from many sources

D．has been put into wide application

【小题3】Which of the following can be learned from the passage?

A．The robotic flyer is designed to learn about insects.

B．Animals are not allowed in biological experiments.

C．There used to be few ways to study how insects fly.

D．Wood’s design can replace animals in some experiments.

【小题4】Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．Father of Robotic Fly

B．Inspiration from Engineering Science

C．Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life Insect

D．Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study

   Before I studied psychology，I used to think that people would laugh when funny things occurred. While I was right about that，I discovered there are lots of other psychological reasons that make people laugh other than the funny part of a joke. When someone laughs at a joke，there will usually be more than one reason that makes him laugh-and the more reasons there are，the more powerful the joke will be.

I was attending a stand-up comedy show in Egypt，and when the man started to make fun of pedestrians crossing streets，everyone laughed their head off. The main reason why those people strongly laughed was that almost all of them felt angry with pedestrians who crossed streets carelessly. The joke wasn't only funny，it also made the audience feel that they were right about being angry at those pedestrians. That is，people were laughing because of both the funny joke and the happiness experienced as a result of the psychological support they got.

The better a joke makes a person feel，the more it includes other psychological factors，and the more the person will like it. For example，if you envy one of your friends，and someone tells a joke that is funny and，at the same time，makes your friend seem stupid，then you will probably laugh at it louder than if you weren't jealous（嫉妒的）of him.

In short, we not only laugh when we hear something funny, but also laugh when we experience some kind of happiness that results from the other psychological factors involved in the joke. I strongly discourage making fun of anyone or belittling someone to make someone else laugh. All I want to explain is that if your joke supports a person's emotions, he will certainly like it a lot.

【小题1】What did the author find out after studying psychology?

A．Only good jokes make people laugh.

B．Many reasons lead to people laughing.

C．Funny things can make people laugh.

D．Laughter can make people healthy.

【小题2】Why did the audience laugh at the pedestrians?

A．Because they played a trick on the pedestrians.

B．Because the pedestrians behaved in a funny way.

C．Because they could feel the pedestrians' happiness.

D．Because their emotions were approved of by the show.

【小题3】What does the underlined word "belittling" probably mean？

A．Speaking highly of.	B．Getting close to.
C．Looking down on.	D．Feeling content with.