大学英语快速阅读第三版2电子版.doc

6.A Long and Healthy Life
Have you wished for a magic pill or magic formula (方法) that would let you live happily forever ? If you have, don’t feel alone! It’s a very mon, natural wish that has a long history. Spanish explorers of the sixteenth century even tried to find a fountain of youth in what is now the state of Florida. The water of this legendary (传说中的) fountain, which no one has yet found ,was believed to restore youth and good health to those who drank it.
Biologists today don’t expect that anyone will find a magical fountain of youth. Growing older is a natural part of the life cycle that can’t be reversed(倒退) .As human beings grow older ,organs such as the heart and lungs may stop functioning properly. Sight and hearing may bee weak .And the human body bees more likely to e down with serious illness from which it cannot recover.
Considered together, changes that bring about the decline(衰退) of an organism are called aging .Because of aging ,many biologists believe that there may be a maximum(最大的) age limit to which even the healthiest organisms can live. For human beings, this maximum age limit is about 110 years.
Perhaps the most important thing that you can learn from your study of human biology is that you have a lot of control over the aging process in your own life .In fact; within our control are many physical and mental factors that have much to do with aging. For example ,each of us ,as recent research indicates, can do many things to help prevent heart and vessel(血管) disease ,which causes half the deaths each year in the United States .We can avoid eating a lot of fatty meat. Eating too much of these types of animal fats can lead to the clogging(阻塞) and hardening of blood vessels . We can cut back on smoking and hopefully of sugar we eat We can exercise regularly and strengthen the heart and other organs. And we can remember to take time out each day for ourselves, time just to relax. Exercise ,recreation(娱乐), and relaxation all reduce stress－inner tension that is hard on all body organs.
One final thing we can do is to try to keep aware of advances made in health education. Information is often available free of charge from health clinics or schools.

(406 words)

prehension Exercises
Ⅰ. Choose the best answers to the following questions.
1. Which of the following is the leading cause of death in the United States?
A. Heart disease.
B. Cancer.
C. Alcohol.
D. Smoking.
2. What happens as people grow older?
A. They dream of a magic pill to help them live a happy and long time.
B. They e down with serious illnesses.
C. Their organs bee weak and may stop working properly.
D. Their blood vessels bee clogged.
3. In the opinion of biologists,＿＿＿.
A. the aging process can be reversed
B. the aging process can be controlled and slowed down
C. the aging process can be got rid of
D. the aging process can go beyond its limit
4. We can slow down the weakening of all our body organs by＿＿＿.
A. not eating animal fat
B. limiting drinking and smoking
C. exercise, recreation and relaxation to blood vessels
D. preventing the clogging and hardening of blood vessels
5. Besides physical and mental factors, which of the following also contributes to living a long and healthy life according to the passage?
A. Health education.
B. Traditional medicine.
C. Artificial organs.
D. The invention of magic pills.
Ⅱ. Judge whether or not the following statements agree with the information given in the passage,and mark Y for YES,N for NO ,or NG if information is not given in the passage.
( ) 1.Few people have the wish of finding a magic pill that would be of help to live happily forever.
( ) 2.Many biologists believe that each species has a natural maximum age limit.
( ) 3.From the passage we know that there is much we can do to help prevent many diseases.
( ) 4.Mental factors have little to do with good health.
( ) 5.Doctors believes that regular exercise reduces the chances of getting heart disease.
7.The Earth's Past

If the history of the earth could be pressed （压缩）into the span of one year's time,the story of the human race would be written as the the last two hours of the final day!This fact gives you an idea of just how old the Earth is no written record to tell us the Earth's geological past ,the Earth has left a record in the form of fossils.
A fossil is the preserved remains or traced of an ancient living thing.Fossils are most often found buried in rock,but they may bones,shells,and woodyalso be found in caves,ancient tar(沥青) beds,and the solid ice that covered the Earth's polar regions.In all these places,fossils are protected from damaging effects of weathering and erosion(侵蚀).
Usually only the hard parts are preserved.The hard part can include ones,shells,and woody tissues.The soft parts,like flesh,either decay or are eaten by animals before they can be preserved.One exception is when an organism is subjected to extreme cold.Then the entire body may be preserved in ice
Sometimes the remains of an organism are preserved after after having been changed into a pletely different form.For instance,coal deposits on the Earth are actually the fossil remains of plants.When plants depose(腐烂),eventually only deposits of carbon remain.When the carbon is under extreme pressure for a long period of time,it is slowly transformed into coal.Coal is called a"fossil fuel"because of the way it is created.
Fossils can help geologists(地质学家)learn about how animal and plant species have changed over time.Since geologists can date the rocks that the fossils are in,they can also tell during what time period in the past a species lived.For example,on the geologic calendar,you can see that fish first appear in the era labeled Paleozoic(古生代).This means that the oldest rocks discovered to contain fish fossils are between 225 million and 600 million years old.We can assume that fish existed in the world at least 225 million years ago.
Fossils are also used to study extinct(灭绝的) species.There are no longer any living woolly mammoths(猛犸) on the Earth,but we can know what a woolly mammoth looked like by studing the frozen bodies found in Siberia.
(406 words)

prehension Exercises
Ⅰ.Choose the best answers to the following question.
1.How old is the Earth?
A.Over 225 million years.
B.Over 600 million years.
C.Between 225 and 600 million years.
D.Over 4 billion years.

2.We know the age of the life on the Earth because ___
A.there is written record of the Earth's geological past
B.some fossils are found in good shape.
C.the earth contains a record in the form of fosssils.
D.some scientists have studied some extinct animals

3.Where can we find fossils besides in rock and caves?
A.In water.
B.In woody tissues.
C.In solid ice.
D.In coal.

4.How is coal created?
A.The remains of dead plants are transformed into deposits of coal under extreme pressure over a long time.
B.The remains of dead animals have been changed into a pleted different form.
C.Rocks and tar beds have bee different form over time.n changed into a pletely different form over time.
D.The soft parts of organisms have been changed into a pletely different form.

5.Fossils are usually found in rock,caves,ice and so on.Why?
A.Because these are the places where fossils can form.
B.Because these are the places where fossils can be protected from the damage of weathering and erosion.
C.Because these are the places where fossils can be changed into a pletely different form.
D.Because these are the places where dead animals and plants can depose and be transformed.

Ⅱ.plete the following sentences with the information given in the passage.
1.____ of ancient animals and plants in rock are known as fossils.
2.Fossils are most often found in rock,caves,tar beds and ice,where they can be preserved from the damage of ____.
3.Coal is made from the remains of ____ that have been changed into a pletely different form.
4.____ of an organism can not be preserved except in solid ice.
5.Fish are estimated to have on the Earth for____.

8. Plastic Trash an environmental Concern

With the invention of polymers(聚合物),chemists gives us plastic.As a consumer product,plastic is strong,versatile(用途广泛的),and durable(耐用的).It can hold up under heat and pressure and can be subjected to total submersion(浸泡)in water (even ocean water)and not be affected.You canleaveit outside,and the weather.Unlike most other materials,plastic does not naturally decay（腐烂）.
For useful consumer products,this remarkable durability is a blessing.Plastic bottles are light and unbreakable;plastic bags do not leak or tear as easily as paper bags do.But when these items are ready for the garbage,it's an environmental nightmare!Millions of tons of plastic garbage litter our highways and beaches.
Plastic trash even affects marine life in the oceans.According to the National Academy of Sciences,more than 600,000 plastic containers and bags are thrown into the oceans every day.Fisherman lose or throw away an estimated 150,000 tons of plastic fishing gear (渔具)each year.At least forty-two species of seabirds are known to snack on plastic ,a habit that is often fatal(致命的).In addition tens of thousands of seals,sea lions,and turtles die each year after being caught in bits of fish netting.
What should we do with the hundreds of millions of tons of plastic and other polymer products that end up in the garbage each year?We could burn it.However,that creates a thick,black smock that is not only intolerable but is also a dangerous form of air pollution.We could bury it,but solid waste dumps have their own pollution problems.Too often,trash in the dumps is not buried for a long period of time and bees a health hazard(危险) for birds and other land animals,including nearby human residents.What's more,highly populated countries with limited land may find that land is far too valuable to use as a dump site.
Obviously,a large-scale solution to the plastic trash problemis not yet in sight.However,individuals can help by keeping some of that plastic out of the garbage for as long as possible.For example,people who get plastic bags from the grocery store could save them and reuse them.Some people may choose not to buy plastic products when the same item is available in paper or glass.Of course,these are only small steps,but they could eventually be part of a large solution.
(412 words)
prehension Exercises

Ⅰ.Choose the best answers to the following question.
1. What's the main idea of passage?
A.Plastic is an ideal material.
B.Plastic garbage has bee an environmental concern.
C.Plastic is a consumer product.
D.No way has been found to solve the plastic trash problem.

2. What are the main properties(特性)of plastic as a useful consumer product?
A.Strong,versatile,durable.
B.Cheap,convenient,reusable.
C.Soft,light,unbreakable.
D.Waterproof,unable to decay,burnable.

3. Plastic trash affects the life of seabirds.For example,____.
A.they are often caught in bits of netting.
B.sea water is polluted by plastic trash.
C.they mistake plastic trash for food.
D.sea beaches are littered with plastic garbage.

4. Which of the following properties of plastics makes plastic garbage a great environmental concern?
A.Light weight.
B.Strength.
C.Fire-proof
D.Resistance to weathering and decay.
5. Which of the following methods is environmentally sound in dealing with plastic trash?
A.Dumping it in the ocean far away from shore.
B.burning it at sea.
C.Not mentioned in this passage.
D.Leaving it in the open air.

Ⅱ.Judge whether or not the following statements agree with the information given in the passage,and mark Y for YES,N for NO ,or NG if information is not given in the passage.
( )1.Presently efforts to deal with plastic trash have got somewhere.
( )2.Burying plastic trash will lead a shortage of land for human use.
( )3.The durability of plastics is of great help to daily life in every respect.
( )4.Obviously a large-scale solution to the plastic trash problem is to keep plastic out of garbage for as long as possible.
( )5.It is suggested in this passage that we use more paper or glass instead of plastic products so as to reduce plastic trash.

9.Meat Industries Are Destroying the Planet

Risk of mad cow disease，and heart disease isn't the only reason to eat less meat：the planet simply cannot sustain a population that increasingly feeds on animal protein(蛋白质), says the U.K. Government's Sustainable Development mission. The problem lies in that animals consume vast supplies of land, crops, water and other resources in order to produce a much smaller quantity of animal protein for human consumption. The fast growing population of animals for use in the human food supply is being described as,"...one of the biggest environmental crises we're now facing."
Then, there's the environmental impact of raising so many animals for food in the first place. Thousands of acres of rain forest continue to be cleared in South American in order to convert jungle to grazing land(牧场)for cattle. That alone is alarming, and yet that's only the beginning. Cows, chickens and pigs produce waste on a massive scale, and that waste is often drained directly into rivers or-this is true-fed back to other animals. Then, there's the use of water while they grow. As water bees increasingly scarce in decades to e, this will bee an issue of great contention(争论). So,it seems that from an environmental point of view, responsible citizens should greatly reduce their consumption of animal protein.
Finally,there's the ethics(行为准则)of eating meat. One of the reasons I don't eat red meat in particular is because red meat es from intelligent mammals(哺乳动物): cows and pigs. These beings have social structures, they municate with each other, and they municate with each other, and they most definitely feel pain. To raise an intelligent animal for no purpose other than to slaughter(屠杀) it and sell its flesh is, in my opinion, evil. The further you go down the scale of intelligence, the less evil this bees. Killing a chicken and eating it is not so evil, since chickens don't have the intelligence of cows and pigs. Consuming bacteria(in yogurt(乳酸), for example) is not at all evil, since bacteria are not capable of feeling pain, it seems. But Pigs? Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. Would you slaughter your pet dog and eat it? If not, then why would you support the slaughter of animals with similar intelligence? And remember: every time you buy bacon or sausage, you are indirectly slaughtering another pig, another intelligent being.
What do you think? Do you believe mammals have souls? Do you thin