四川省历年中考真题分类汇编：阅读理解（一）（科普类）

Have you ever imagined the life in space? The following will show you the astronauts' daily life.

Eating in space

If you go camping for more than a week with some friends, you will  make sure you have  plenty of foods and keep them properly. At the end of your camping trip, you would deal with your rubbish properly before the ride home.

Astronauts almost do the same thing when they go to space. Preparation changes with the food type. Some foods can be eaten in their natural forms, such as chocolate cakes and fruits. Other foods require adding water, such as cheese. Of course, an oven is provided at the space station to heat the food. But there are no fridges, so space food must be kept properly.

Sleeping in space

After a long day at work, nothing is better than a good night's sleep! Just like on the earth, in space astronauts go to bed at a certain time, then get up and prepare for work again. When going to sleep, they have to attach themselves, so they don't float (漂浮) around or hit their bodies against something. They usually use sleeping bags located in small crew cabins (乘员舱). Each crew cabin is just big enough for one person. Generally, astronauts have an eight-hour sleep each  day when they finish their task.

Doing sports in space

Exercise is an important part of every astronaut's daily life to prevent muscle loss (肌肉萎缩). Usually, astronauts exercise two hours every day. Lifting 200 pounds on the earth may be a lot of work. But lifting that same object in space would be much easier. That means the things for exercise need to be specially designed, so astronauts can receive the exercise needed.

Living in space is not just all work and no play. Astronauts have fun, too. They like to look out the window and play with their food. Fun plays an important role in the quality of their life.

In 1987 a small company named Huawei was started in Shenzhen. After more than 30 years of development, the company has now beaten Apple and become the world's second largest maker of smartphones. It has also become the world's supplier (供应者) of 5G. In China and even in the world, Huawei is a wonder. Although it started producing mobile phones not many years ago, it has become one of the most famous phone companies.

But recently, Huawei faces some difficulties. The US government made a law to stop its sales in America. American officials said Huawei gave information that it collected to the Chinese government. At the same time, the US government planned to stop selling parts and services to Huawei. They believed that Huawei's business would be hurt this way.

"We have never received such a request from the Chinese government and we have never tried to get into other systems to collect information," Ren Zhengfei, Huawei's president said. "The law would have little effect on our company. Huawei has enough ability to deal with the problems," Ren added.

In an interview several years ago, Ren Zhengfei said, "I started Huawei with only £4000 at the beginning, but now it has become a 100 billion company. The experience was not as romantic as you imagine."

Facing the law of the US, Huawei is growing. Huawei's smartphone sales around the world rose 50 percent compared with a year earlier in the first three months of 2019. At the same time, sales from both Samsung and Apple fell. So far Huawei has grown into the world's largest telecommunication equipment supplier (供应商), selling in 170 countries. It may beat Samsung as the largest smartphone maker in the near future.

A new kind of sea sponge(海绵） found in Norfolk, England, has been named by a nine-year-old girl after a competition for local schools.

The unique purple sponge, which had never been seen in other parts of the world, was first discovered by divers(潜水者) off the north Norfolk coast. Although found in 2011, it had been without a name for almost ten years. In January this year, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS)- a group of people who work to protect the UK's seas and coast - asked local schoolchildren to come up with suggestions.

Now the sponge has a name to be proud of: parpal dumplin, as suggested by nine-year-old Sylvie from Langham Village School. Sylvie said she came up with the name because "the sponge is purple and it looks like a dumpling". Parpal dumpling is "purple dumpling" spoken in a Norfolk accent(口音). The judges all agreed that Sylvie's suggestion should be the sponge's name because "the spelling gives the sponge a strong connection to Norfolk".

Sponges were once thought to be plants but they are actually simple sea animals. They feed on tiny things in sea water and help to keep the water clean in the process. Sponges have a very "lazy" lifestyle, with no means of moving themselves around. They are found on the seabed, rocks or even shells. They come in all kinds of different colours, shapes and sizes.

Parpal dumplin was first discovered in a place called the Cromer Shoal Chalk Beds as part of a project called Seasearch. When diver Dawn Watson showed sponge expert Claire Goodwin what she found, Goodwin was sure that it was a kind of sponge unknown to science. Watson's discovery is a special sponge, which takes the shape of whatever it covers. Parpal dumplin will now become its common name, and will be used until researchers have learned enough about it to suggest an official scientific one.

    It's a common belief that fish can't remember anything for longer than seven seconds. It may seem sad to think that every moment in their lives would be like seeing the world for the first time. But don't be so quick to feel sorry for them. A new study has found that fish have much better memories than we used to think.

    In the study, researchers from Mac Ewan University in Canada trained a kind of fish called African cichlids to go to a certain area of their tank to get food. They took the fish out and then waited for 12 days before putting them back in the tank again. They found that after such a long break the fish sill went to the same place where they first got food.

    In fact, scientists had been thinking for a long time that African cichlids might have a good memory. But there was no clear evidence until the latest findings.

    Just as a good memory can make our lives easier, it also plays an important part when a fish is trying to survive in the wild. "If fish are able to remember that a certain area contains (容纳) safe food, they will be able to go back to that area without putting their lives in danger," lead researcher Trevor Hamilton told Live Science.

    So next time you are watching your pet fish from outside the tank, perhaps you should feel close to them-they may remember who you are.

    What's going to happen in the future? Will robots control our planet? Will computers become smarter than us? Not likely. But here are some things that scientists say are most likely to happen in 10-30 years from now, according to the BBC.

    Bionic (仿生的) Eyes

    They are no longer something, only in a science fiction movie. People who are blind may have a chance to see things clearly—by wearing bionic eyes.

    A blind eye can no longer sense sight, but a bionic eye can use a camera to "see" the environment and send information to the mind. Now the bionic eye only allows patients to see lights and unclear shapes. A bionic eye with very clear pictures could be just in a few years away.

    Digital Money

    We used to pay with cash for everything we bought. Now we can use Wechat Pay or Alipay to shop, money is spent without seeing it. That means we are already using digital money. People only need to take a mobile phone wherever they go. Using these ways is much easier than searching our pockets for change. It is also safer than carrying a lot of cash.

    It is reported that people in Sweden completely stopped using cash last year, and the US might be the next.

    Self-driving Cars

    Unlike a human driver, a self-driving car won't be influenced by a phone call, the radio or something outside the window. Sensors (探测器) and cameras on the car would allow it to follow the rules of the road strictly and keep a safe space from other cars. This would greatly make the number of road accidents smaller. You can even take a short rest while the car drives itself. In the future, driverless cars would be widely accepted.

    Do you know 5G? It is the fifth generation (代) of mobile network technology. These new networks are coming.

    China just issued commercial licenses (发放商用牌照) for 5G on June 6, 2019. This means that China's telecom companies will be able to offer 5G networks for mobile phone users.

    Each mobile network generation is faster and more powerful than the one before it. 1G let us talk to each other. 2G let us send messages. 3G gave us data (数据) and the Internet. And 4G made all of these things faster. What's special about 5G?

    5G has a very short delay between sending and receiving information. Now, 4G takes about 100 to 200 milliseconds (毫秒) to send and receive data. But 5G will get it down to 1 millisecond or less-this is almost real-time.

    This big change will not only make our mobile Internet faster，but also deeply change our lives. Read on to find out how.

    5G + entertainment (娱乐)

    5G networks are about 100 times faster than 4G. This means you can download a movie in seconds using 5G.

    Also, virtual reality (VR) games will become more popular with 5G. The short delay of 5G will make the games feel even more real.

    5G + transport

    5C will also bring us safer self-driving cars. These cars can send signals (信号) to each other. They also talk to traffic lights and road sensors (传感器). 5G will allow cars to react (反应) even faster than human drivers.

    5G + smart homes

    5G also makes the Internet of things possible. Internet of things is a large network that connects everything to the Internet. Smart homes are part of it.

    For example, your toaster can automatically (自动地) start making breakfast after your alarm rings. And if its sensor feels the air becoming dry, a smart sprinkler (洒水器) could water your plants by itself.

    For thousands of years, humans have explored(探索)the Earth. Nowadays, we are exploring space. Astronomers (天文学家) are the modern﹣day explorers, Now, many astronomers are looking for new planets and new places for humans to live in the future. But where do astronomers start looking？

    First of all, astronomers look for a star. That's because our own Earth moves around a star (the Sun). More importantly, it is the correct distance( 距离) from the Sun for heat and light. So when astronomers have found the star, they look at the planets around it. In recent years, astronomers have found nearly 400 new planets with stars. However, many of these planets are either too near to the star or too far away.

    However, if the planet is in a good position, astronomers look for three key things: water, air and rock. Water is important because all life needs water. Humans can drink it and they can also grow plants with water. And plants produce air for humans to breathe and food to eat. Rock on a planet is also important. That's because there is often water under the rock.

    After many years of scrutinizing, astronomers have found a planet that is similar to the Earth. It's Gliese 581g and it's near a star. The astronomers think it has water and rock and the average(平均的) temperature is between -31℃ and -12℃.That's cold, but not colder than Antarctica or the Arctic Circle, for example. Gliese 581g is bigger than the Earth. A year on Gliese 581g is only 37 Earth days instead of 365. But astronomers do not think these are big differences and some of them think Gliese 581g will be a new Earth. However, Gliese 58Ig is twenty light years from the Earth.

A small cloud moves slowly through the air in a hospital operating room (手术室). In the room a patient with cancer(癌症), lies on a table. The cloud is all around the patient, covering her body and filling her lungs(肺). The cloud is not smoke. It is made of millions of nano—robots(纳米机器人). These tiny robots move from cell (细胞) to cell in the patient's body, killing the cancer.

Fighting cancer with nano—robots is only an idea today, but scientists say that it could be possible in the future. Using nano—robots for good purposes such as fighting the illness or repairing the environment may be the way to many of today's problems.

However, nano—robots could be a dangerous risk as well. Because nano—robots are so tiny, they will have to work in large teams of many thousands to many millions. For this reason, nano—robots will have to be programmed(被编程)to build themselves. Scientists will not have the ability to build millions of nano—robots one by one.

This ability to re—produce is making some scientistic worried. What will happen if something goes wrong in the programming? Quite a lot of crazy nano—robots would be far worse than any illness. Some people think that if they get out of control, nano—robots could make the Earth gone.

What should be done? Should we continue researching nano—robots or should we search for other methods? This is one of the many difficult decisions that we have to make in the future.

People are interested in animal communication and scientists have done lots of researches on this subject.

Most animals always use language to communicate. If cats look and blink （眯眼）at you slowly, which shows their love to you. You can also do this show you love. When they sit with tails around themselves, they're happy. If they feel scared, their tails may look like the end of toilet brushes. When they put ears back, they are a bit mad. Birds can also show feelings through eyes and feathers. If birds make their pupils（瞳孔）large and small from time to time, this can be a sign that they are excited or scared or angry. Birds will ruffle（弄乱） their feathers when they clean themselves. However, if their feathers remain ruffled, it may mean they are ill. You'd better take them to see a veterinarian in an animal hospital.

Some animals communicate by smell. Dogs are famous for this. They can learn about something by smelling. They can find missing people by using their fantastic sense of smell. They have helped the police for a long time. Mice have an excellent sense of smell, too. Scientists   even train them to find landmines（地雷）.It is found that even ants use smell, they use smell to tell other ants where the food is.

Frogs and insects communicate with sounds. Usually the "gentlemen" make sounds to invite the "ladies". Whales and elephants also use sound to communicate, these sounds can travel very far through water or the ground, but it is not possible for humans to hear some of the sounds.

Learn more about the ways of animal communication at http:// www.animal.com.cn.

    When it comes to long-distance space travel, the biggest problem is that spaceships can only get as far as the fuel onboard allows. In 1964, a British writer Clarke came up with the idea of "solar sailing "in his science fiction. He wrote of large, mirror-like sails that collect power from the sun and free spaceships from the limitation of fuel.

    This sci-fi idea was first successfully brought to reality (现实)in 2010 by Japan's IKAROS satellite. Ever since then, the technology has improved mission by mission, with the latest being NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail 3 (ACS3).NASA has recently announced that it's going to team up with Lithuania's satellite-building company NanoAvionics to test its new sail in low-Earth orbit.

    To many, a solar sail (太阳帆) may look like a giant solar panel (太阳能电池板), but it actual works very differently. While solar panels take in energy from the sun and change it into power solar sails use photons(光子) given off by the sun to create direct power. Besides, solar panels are big and heavy to carry, while solar sails are just the opposite.

    According to Abbott, the CEO of NanoAvionics, the upcoming low-Earth orbit trial with NASA, if successful, will be followed with deep-space missions that involve larger solar sails. These are ideal for low-cost and long-distance space travel because fuel will no longer be a problem.

    "It started as a sci-fi dream, "Popular Mechanics reporter Jennifer Leman wrote. "Now it could be the future of space flight."