17th century sailing ships were small and rolled heavily in rough seas, so most of the pas

learning in the______.

A. 16th century

B. 17th century

C. 18th century

D. 19th century

egan almost immediately after the end of the war of 1812 in order to meet the new need for the regular rapid transportation of mail, light cargo, and passengers. It was the increase in emigration to America that for the first time made the carrying of passengers across the Atlantic more profitable than the transportation of heavy cargo. A new type of sailing vessel, the packet, appeared to meet this new demand, and the extent of the demand very soon resulted in strong competition among several packet lines. The earliest to these was the Black Ball Line established in New York in 1816, only a year after the end of the war. The scheduled service of this famous line started with four of the new fast packets, each of 400 to 500 tons: the Pacific, the Amity, the James Cooper, and the William Thompson. During the first twenty years of service, the average time from New York to Liverpool was 23 days and the average trip back to New York took 40 days.By the middle of the century, packets had increased in size to between 900 and 1,000 tons, and their speed had increased. The Red Jacket once sailed from New York to Liverpool in 13 days, 11.5 hours. The Mary Whiteridge took 4.5 hours off this record on a run from Baltimore to Liverpool. Such speeds were far greater than the average of from 19 to 21 days to Liverpool and from 30 to 35 homeward to New York, but the packet had still set a new standard for transoceanic travel. No wonder that steamships, the first of which tried to compete with the packets in 1838, only began to replace them in the 1850's.

The fastest transatlantic voyage by a packet mentioned by the author was from ______.

A．Liverpool to New York

B．New York to Liverpool

C．Liverpool to Baltimore

D．Baltimore to Liverpool

ook has a simple manner with complex ideas, without being patronizing, and is often very funny.

In 274 pages Sagan deals with everything from the formation of the Earth to the puzzling possibilities of contact with extra-terrestrial life. This is the moment in history when man's stepping into the universe has suddenly become conceivable. To Sagan this is more exciting and important than was the exploration of the New World in the sixteenth century. So expenditure on the space programme, pruned of recent excesses, ought to continue--it is, according to Sagan, no larger a part of America's gross national income than was the relative cost to England in the sixteenth century of exploration in sailing ships.

The book is not for scientific illiterates, nor is Sagan a pedestrian scientist. Although he makes short work of the unidentified foreign objects (UFO) spotters, he is unafraid to take us on a speculative journey to a black hole which, for all he knows, might be the quick route to somewhere else, not necessarily our universe.

Sagan exhibits a passionate interest in life in the cosmos in which there are .almost certainly civilizations much more advanced than our own. We are the result of a number of relatively recent cosmic accidents, but for all that, Sagan is no less excited about our future,

From the passage we understand that Carl Sagan writes ______.

A．forcefully and complexly

B．elaborately and literally

C．simply and humorously

D．snobbishly and cleverly

Life on Mars

Perhaps more than anything else, scientists are eager to find out if Martian life existed in the past—or still exists.【61】telescopes first zoomed in【62】Mars in the 17th century, people have conjured up a wild【63】of images or what Martians might look like. But space probes like the 1997 Sojourner land rover have yielded no evidence of such alien beings.

Most experts agree that if life did at one time evolve on Mars, finding evidence of that life—which would likely take the form. of tiny organisms—won't be easy.【64】, many scientists are optimistic. "We've got organisms on Earth that adapted to life deep【65】the surface in underground water wells, " says Stephen Clifford. "【66】life like that evolved on Mars four billion years ago, there's no reason why it【67】today. "

【68】last year's disappointing losses, the future of Martian exploration looks【69】This year, two major

films about fictitious Mars missions—Red Planet and Missions to Mars—are certain to heighten interest in our planetary neighbour. More important, plans for new sets of NASA orbiters and landers—one to launch in 2001 , the other in 2003—are already in the works. Without a doubt, each new mission will inch scientists closer to【70】the mysteries of planet Mars.

(61)

A．When

B．Before

C．Ever since

D．Ever

tinuously practiced by humans for some 20,000 years. Together with other activities【C1】______ ritualistic in origin but have come to be designated as artistic (such as music or dance), painting was one of the earliest ways in which man【C2】______ to express his own personality and his【C3】______ understanding of an existence beyond the material world.【C4】______ music and dance, however, examples of early forms of painting have survived to the present day. The modern eye can derive aesthetic as well as antiquarian satisfaction【C5】______ the 15,000-year-old cave murals of Lascaux-some examples【C6】______ to the considerable powers of draftsmanship of these early artists. And painting, like other arts, exhibits universal qualities that【C7】______ for viewers of all nations and civilizations to understand and appreciate.

The major【C8】______ examples of early painting anywhere in the world are found in Western Europe and the Soviet Union. But some 5,000 years ago, the areas in which important paintings were executed 【C9】______ to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and neighboring regions.【C10】______ , Western shared a European cultural tradition--the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin and, later, the countries of the New World.

Western painting is in general distinguished by its concentration【C11】______ the representation of the human【C12】______ , whether in the heroic context of antiquity or the religious context of the early Christian and medieval world. The Renaissance【C13】______ this tradition through a【C14】______ examination of the natural world and an investigation of balance, harmony, and perspective in the visible world, linking painting【C15】______ the developing sciences of anatomy and optics. The first real【C16】______ from figurative painting came with the growth of landscape painting in the 17th and 18th centuries. The landscape and figurative traditions developed together in the 19th century in an atmosphere that was increasingly【C17】______ "painterly" qualities of the【C18】______ of light and color and the expressive qualities of paint handling. In the 20th century these interests【C19】______ to the development of a third major tradition in Western painting, abstract painting, which sought to【C20】______ and express the true nature of paint and painting through action and form.

【C1】

A．may have been

B．that may have

C．may have

D．that may have been

t of the family home for a while.

Many parents will say no to this demand. But experts say it might be a good idea to let your teens live with a friend or relative.

"It was the break I needed at the time," said Richard Lerner. He is talking about the time he spent living with his grandmother when he was 15.

"It allowed me to be a different person than I was with my parents." Lerner said. He now heads the Institute for Children, Youth and Families at Michigan State University.

Experts say teens living away from their families can test new ways of thinking and getting along with people. They may see new solutions (解答) to problems.

This is different from running away, the experts stress. Runaways are often fleeing serious problems.

Some teens who want some time away from family attend a structured summer program. Others live for a while with a relative or with the family of a friend.

If there is conflict (冲突) at home, having a teen live elsewhere can benefit other family members. It gives everyone space to develop better relationships.

Joseph Kett teaches history at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He says living at home until the late teen years has become the norm (准则) only in recent times.

"In the 17th century, children were often sent to live in other people's homes when they were about 10 or 11," he said.

Peter Sheras teaches education at the University of Virginia. He said parents should listen when a child wants to move out. They should try to find out why the child wants some time away.

Often, parents can help the child find a safe place to stay during that time. In other cases, they can meet the child's needs at home.

According to this passage, many parents think it ______ for their children to live away from them.

A．right

B．happy

C．unsafe

D．reasonable

A.A. port of call

B.B. sailing date

C.C. arrived date

D.D. volume

A.14th

B.15th

C.16th

D.17th

study of religion. What gives unity to the whole Scholastic movement, the academic practice in Europe from the 9th to the 17th centuries, are the common aims, attitudes, and methods generally accepted by all its members. The chief concern of the Scholastics was not to discover new facts but to integrate the knowledge already acquired separately by Greek reasoning and Christian revelation. This concern is one of the most characteristic differences between Scholasticism and modern thought since the Renaissance.

The basic aim of the Scholastics determined certain common attitudes, the most important of which was their conviction of the fundamental harmony between reason and revelation. The Scholastics maintained that because the same God was the source of both types of knowledge and truth was one of his chief attributes, he could not contradict himself in these two ways of speaking. Any apparent opposition between revelation and reason could be traced either to an incorrect use of reason or to an inaccurate interpretation of the words of revelation. Because the Scholastics believed that revelation was the direct teaching of God, it possessed for them a higher degree of truth and certainty than did natural reason. In apparent conflicts between religious faith and philosophic reasoning, faith was thus always the supreme arbiter; the theologians' decision overruled that of the philosopher. After the early 13th century, Scholastic thought emphasized more the independence of philosophy within its own domain. Nonetheless, throughout the Scholastic period, philosophy was called the servant of theology, not only because the truth of philosophy was subordinated to that of theology, but also because the theologian used philosophy to understand and explain revelation.

This attitude of Scholasticism stands in sharp contrast to the so-called double-truth theory of the Spanish-Arab philosopher and physician Averroes. His theory assumed that truth was accessible to both philosophy and Islamic theology but that only philosophy could attain it perfectly. The so-called truths of theology served, hence, as imperfect imaginative expressions for the common people of the authentic truth accessible only to philosophy. Averroes maintained that philosophic truth could even contradict, at least verbally, the teachings of Islamic theology.

As a result of their belief in the harmony between faith and reason, the Scholastics attempted to determine the precise scope and competence of each of these faculties. Many early Scholastics, such as the Italian ecclesiastic and philosopher St. Anselm, did not clearly distinguish the two and were overconfident that reason could prove certain doctrines of revelation. Later, at the height of the mature period of Scholasticism, the Italian theologian and philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas worked out a balance between reason and revelation.

With the Scholastics, the search for new knowledge ______.

A．stopped completely

B．slowed down

C．advanced rapidly

D．awaked gradually