浙江省2022年英语期中备考（九下）：阅读理解 4

    As a child, I was really afraid of the dark and of getting lost .These fears were very real and caused me some uncomfortable moments.

    Maybe it was the strange way things looked and sounded in my own room at night that scared me so much. There was never complete darkness, but always a streetlight or passing car lights ,which made clothes on the back of a chair take on the shape of a wild animal .Out of the corner of my eye I saw the curtains (帘) seem to move when there was no wind A very low sound in the floor would seem a hundred times louder than in the day . My imagination wound run wild, and my heart would beat fast. I would lie very still so that the "enemy" would not discover me.

    Another of my childhood fears was that I would get lost, especially on the way home from school .Every morning I got on the school bus right near my home That was no problem After school, though when all the buses were lined up along the street I was afraid that I would get in the wrong one and be taken to some other strange places .On school or family trips to a park or a museum I would not let the leaders out of my sight.

    Perhaps one of the worst fears of all I had as a child was that of not being liked or accepted by others .Being popular was so important to me then and the fear of not being liked was a serious one.

    One of the processes (过程) growing up is being able to realize  and overcome our fears Understanding the things that scared us as children helps us achieve greater success later in life.

One day, while my husband and I were passing a sporting goods store with a sign "Going out of Business" in a mall, I suggested looking around in it. But my husband said it was all overpriced junk.

With my promise of not buying anything, he agreed to wait in a coffee shop nearby.

I entered the crowded store, and strolled up and down All of a sudden, I saw the exact canoe which my husband had been longing for many years. I gasped and blinked three times. Yes, it was still there. My heart beat wildly. I quickly walked towards it and found out the price tag which said it was S6, 000 off.

Only S750?Must be mistaken!

I asked a young salesman named Mathew if there was anything wrong, but I was told it was new and was on clearance sale just like everything else.

After a check, however, he told me they made a mistake about the price which was supposed to be $4, 750.

With tears in my eyes, I said, "Of course, it was too good to be true. This is exactly like my husband's dreamboat. He's going to be 62 years old this Friday. He had to retire early for his health. It's been hard on just the pension but the stubborn old fool has been saving $10 every week for years. "My voice was lower and lower and then I walked away.

I was already at the mall door when Mathew caught up with me.

"Do you have $750 plus $25 for delivery and a bit more for tax, ma'am?"I gasped, "Yes. Yes. ""Well then, you just have your husband sitting on the front porch on Friday morning at around 10 o'clock when my dad and I come to unload his new boat." I started to cry. My old hand shook and I couldn't say a word for a long time.

Mathew swallowed and told me the story about his grandfather-the owner of the store, who had run it for more than 30 years, "He always promised to retire one day and would spend time fishing in a canoe. He ordered this one last year. But he died, sudden-like, just last week and never found a chance to use it. I think he will be very, very happy that your husband will get this canoe. You just have to promise that he will use it a lot. "

"I promise, "I said as I hurried to look for my dear sweet husband.

Green invaders (入侵者) are taking over America. Not invaders from space, but plants! You might not think of plants as dangerous, but in this case they are becoming a great threat (威胁) to the nature's food chain (食物链) . The invaders are plants brought here by people from other countries to make gardens and yards look pretty. Now there are so many of those plants, they are crowding out the native plants that have lived here since before human settlers arrived.

And that's a problem, says Dr Doug Tallamy, an insect expert at the University of Delaware. He explains that almost all the plant-eating insects in the United States eat only certain plants. Monarch butterfly caterpillars (幼虫) , for example, eat milkweed. If people cut down milkweed and replace it with another plant, the butterflies will have no food to be alive. But the trouble doesn't stop there. When insects can't get the right plants to eat and they die off, then the birds don't have enough bugs for their meals. Tallamy points out that almost all migrating (迁徙) birds depend on insects to feed their young.

"We can't let the plants and animals around us disappear," says Tallamy. "The way to protect them is to give them food to eat. But when we plant non-native plants, we are breaking the food chain, because then we don't have the insects the birds need to live." That's bad for the Earth. We need different kinds of living things to keep the planet healthy and beautiful.

The good news is: garden centers sell native plants. "Just google 'native plants' and your location, and you can find out which plants really belong where you live," says Tallamy.

Many people know that rubbish is a big problem on planet Earth. What many people don't know is that junk has become a problem in outer space too. According to BBC News, there are more than 22,000 pieces of space junk floating(漂浮) around the earth. And these are just the things that we can see from the surface of the earth by telescopes. There are also millions of smaller pieces of junk that we can't see.

Objects, like bits of old space rockets or satellites, move around the planet at very high speeds, so fast that even a very small piece can break important satellites or become dangerous to astronauts. If the tiniest piece of junk crashed(碰撞) into a spaceship, it could damage the vehicle.

To make things worse, when two objects in space crash, they break into many smaller pieces. For example, when a U.S. satellite hit an old Russian rocket in 2009, it broke into more than 2,000 pieces, increasing the amount of space junk.

To reduce additional space junk, countries have agreed that all new space tools can only stay in space for 25 years at most. Each tool must be built to fall safely into the earth's atmosphere(大气层) after that time. In the upper parts of the atmosphere, it will burn up.

Many scientists are also suggesting different ways to clean up space junk. In England scientists are testing a metal net that can be fired into space junk. The net catches the junk and then pulls it into the earth's atmosphere to burn up. The Germans are building robots that can collect pieces of space junk and bring them back to Earth to be safely destroyed.

"The problem is becoming more challenging because we're sending more objects into space to help people use their mobile phones and computers," says Marco Castronuovo, an Italian space researcher. "The time to act is now. The longer we leave the problem, the bigger it will become," he says.

Have you ever seen a car without a driver? It sounds crazy, but these computer-driven driverless cars will soon be filling roads near you. Companies like Google and Tesla have been designing and testing these cars, and the technology is there.

So how? The cars have sensors (感应器) all around which can find other cars and objects in the road. Road signs are read by cameras, and satellite navigation systems (卫星导航系统) are used so the car knows how to get where you want to go. All you have to do is type in the address! Finally, a central computer system takes in all the information that it receives from the sensors and cameras and works out when to speed up, stop and turn.

Sound like your idea of heaven (天堂) ? Sitting back, looking out of the windows and even watching a film or reading a book while ‘driving' would be possible with this new technology. You wouldn't have to worry about remembering directions to where you're going. In addition, computers would also drive more safely than people — they would obey the rules and have quicker action times when in dangerous situations.

However, there are many drawbacks of driverless cars. Computers would have difficulties making ethical (道德的) decisions: if a child ran into the road, would the computer choose to hit the child or turn suddenly and potentially kill the car's passengers? Moreover, I personally find driving fun –I'd miss never driving a car myself. There would also be many other decisions to be made –should children, or drunk people, be allowed in a driverless car by themselves? Or would there need to be a person with a driving license in the car at all times?

I'm not certain I'd want a driverless car – but it's only a matter of time before they'll become more affordable and popular on our roads.

The Internet is an amazing invention. Because of its getting into almost everyone's life, the world will probably never be the same.

People can log onto the Internet 24/7 in search of whatever they need. An elderly woman who is unable to drive can use the Internet to shop, and even chat with her grandchildren without leaving the house. Collectors no longer have to go to markets or yard sales on weekends to find useful things to add to their collections. All they have to do is log onto E-bay and post a bid(出价).

As a teacher, I have found the Internet is very useful in preparing the teaching plans. The Web has many sites created for teachers to share ideas and exchange information. Perhaps young people get the most from using the Internet. Besides, they can also use the Net for school projects and homework. Being able to express themselves and show creativity on sites like My-Space and Twitter is another big advantage of using Internet.

As a saying goes, "Every sword has two edges." I think that students sometimes depend too much on the Internet. They don't seem to understand that just being on Google doesn't make it a trusted source(信息来源). I cannot count the number of times a student has turned in a paper that contains incorrect facts from sites.

What's worse, chat rooms have become the new playground for bad guys. The Internet gives them the anonymity (匿名) they need to draw the attention of children and lead them to improper conversations and in some cases meeting up with them. Children may also find sites that are improper for them. Even adults can fall prey to (深受……之害) stolen passwords (密码) if they aren't careful about the things they are downloading onto their computer.

A new study finds that more than eighty percent of Internet users in the United States search for health information online.

Susannah Fox from the Pew Internet Project says doctors are still the main source of health information. But the study found that searching online is one of the leading ways that people look for a second opinion. He says, "People are short of fact­checking what they have heard from a doctor. Our studies show that people are still very likely to turn to a health doctor when they need a diagnosis(诊断) or are planning a treatment. "

Forty-four percent of people are actually looking for doctors or other providers when they search for health information online. Two thirds of Internet users look online for information about a certain disease or medical condition.

The Internet has also become an important source of spiritual support for people with health problems. Susannah Fox says one in five Internet users has gone online to find other people who have the same condition.

A disease is considered uncommon if it affects(侵袭) fewer than 200, 000 people worldwide. The rise of social networking has made it easier for people with uncommon diseases to connect with each other and feel less alone. Social networking is also changing the way some doctors and patients communicate with each other.

Dr Jeff Livingston operates a medical centre for women in Irving, Texas. His office uses password­protected software to share information with patients. He says the software has increased efficiency(效率), reduced costs and improved relations with patients. It has just changed the way we do health care. His medical centre also has a Facebook page, a My Space page and a Twitter feed.

    Many of us may have experienced the pleasant surprise of seeing recommended(推荐的)songs after you listen to certain songs on a music app. When we open shopping websites, we are more likely to see things on the home page that we might want to buy.

    This is based on data(数据). Data is no longer only about numbers, but information from almost every part of our lives: our location, shopping habits and interests. All of this is called "big data". The sources for big data generally fall into one of three categories: Streaming data, Social media data and publicly available sources.

    President Xi Jinping called for China to speed up its big data strategy in order to better serve social and economic development and improve people's lives, the Xinhua News Agency reported. He also asked for greater use of big data in areas like education, social safety and transportation.

    In the past few years we have seen big data being used more often in China. The role it plays in tourism is just one example. The data travelers share online is offering the tourism industry a lot of information about the country's scenic areas. After the data is analyzed(分析), different scenic areas can create their own online information for other travelers to see. The information not only tells travelers' reviews, but also tells the scenic areas where services need to be improved.

    Big data is also an important growth engine(增长引擎)for economic development. With an annual growth rate of 30 percent, sales of big data services and products in China will reach 1 trillion yuan yearly by 2020, China News Service reported.

    You probably know many of the things that you can do with the hundreds of different muscles(肌肉) in your body. But have you ever thought about how the muscles in an animal's body are different from yours? An animal's muscles are made to do the things that are most important for its life.

    Lions are hunters. They depend on their ability to catch other animals. Lions must be fast in order to catch their prey(猎物). The powerful muscles in their back legs allow them to run at speeds of more than 30 miles per hour. They can also jump a distance of more than 35 feet. The strong muscles in their front legs help them catch their prey.

    Snakes also use their muscles for hunting prey and for movement, but their muscles work in very different ways than lions' do. Because snakes do not have any legs, they use their muscles to push against the ground or other objects to move themselves forward. Their muscles also allow them to eat things that seem much too large. For example, a snake may eat an egg that is larger than the width of its body. How does this happen? The snake's strong neck muscles work together to push the egg down the mouth.

    The elephant's long nose has a lot of muscles. Scientists believe that the nose alone has more than 100,000 muscles! This is because the elephant uses its nose much in the same way that people use their hands and fingers. Even though the nose is large, it can perform surprisingly tasks. For example, an elephant can pick up a small leaf from the ground. The nose can also be a powerful tool. An elephant can use its nose to pick up a tree by its roots or even to lift a baby elephant.

The great muscles of these animals seem pretty unbelievable. But the muscles in your body work exactly the way you need them to. After all, it might be fun to be able to jump a distance of 30 feet, but as a human being, there is just not much need for it.

    It's a popular belief that fish can't remember anything for longer than seven seconds. It may seem sad to think that they don't remember what they've eaten or where they've been, and they don't recognize you or any of their friends – 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 recent study has found that fish have much better memories than we used to think. In fact, certain species(种类) of fish can even remember events from as long as 12 days ago, BBC reported.

    In the study, researchers from MacEwan University in Canada trained a kind of fish called African cichlids to go to a certain area of their tank to get food. They then waited for 12 days before putting them back in the tank again. This suggested that they could remember their past experiences. Researchers used computer software to monitor(监视) the fish's movements. They found that after such a long break the fish still 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. An earlier study showed that they behaved aggressively in front of certain fish, perhaps because they remembered their past fights.

    Just as a good memory can make our lives easier, it also plays an important part when a fish is trying to survive(生存) in the wild. "If fish are able to remember that a certain area contains 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.

    For a long time, fish were placed far below chimpanzees, dolphins and mice on the list of smart animals. But this study has given scientists a new understanding of their intelligence. So next time you are watching your pet fish from outside the tank, perhaps you should feel closer to them – they may remember who you are.