2013職稱英語真題原文:Putting Plants to Work

　環(huán)球網(wǎng)校2013年職稱英語考試押中文章一覽　　

　理工B級(jí)

　　第三十五篇

　　Putting Plants to Work

　　(沖刺班 第9講)

　　Using the power of the sun is nothing new. People have had solar-powered calculators and building with solar panels for decades. But plants are the real experts: They've been using sunlight as an energy source for billions of years.

　　Cells in the green leaves of plants work like tiny factories to convert sunlight, carbon dioxide,and water into sugars and starches,stored energy that the plants can use. This conversion process is called photosynthesis. Unfortunately, unless you're a plant, it's difficult and expensive to convert sunlight into storable energy. That's why scientists mr taking a closer look at exactly how plants do it.

　　Some scientists are trying to get plants, or biological cells that act like plants. to work as miniature photosynthetic power stations. For example, Maria Ghirardi of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.2, is working with green algaea. She's trying to trick themintoproducing hydrogen4 insLead of sugars when they perform photosynthesis. Once the researchers can get the algae working efficiently, the hydrogen that they produce could be used to power fuel

　　cells in cars or to generare electricity.

　　The algae are grown in narrow-necked glass bottles to produce hydrogen in the lab. During photosynthesis, plants normally make sugars or starches "But under certain conditions, a lot of algae are able to use the sunlight energy not to store starch, but LO make hydrogen. " Ghirardi says.For example, algae will produce hydrogen in an airfree environment. It's the oxygen in the air that prevems algae from making hydrogen most of the time.

　　Working in an airfree environment, however, is difficult. It's not a practical way to produce cheap energy. But Ghirardi and her colleagues have discovered that by removing a chemical called sulfate from the environment that the algae grow in, they will make hydrogen instead of sugars, even when air is present.

　　Unfortunately, removing the sulfate also makes the algae's cells work very slowly, and not much hydrogen is produced Still, the researchers see this as a rrrsL step in their goal to produce hydrogen efficiently from algae. With more work. they may be able to speed the cells' activity and produce larger quantities of hydrogen.

　　The researchers hope that algae will one day be an easy-to-use fuel source The organisms are cheap to get and to feed, Ghirardi says. and they can grow almost anywhere:“You can grow them in a reactor. in a pond. You can grow them in the ocean. There's a lot of flexibility in how you

　　can use these organisms”

　　詞匯：

　　panel /pzenl/n.嵌板，發(fā)熱板，儀器板 miniature adj.微型的

　　carbon dioxide /,ka:bandai'aksaid/二氧化碳

　　alga ([復(fù)lalgae)n.水藻,海藻

　　starch n.淀粉 sulfate n.硫酸鹽，硫酸酯

　　photosynthesis /ifautau'smoIsis/n.光合作用

　　注釋：

　　1.convert into...：將…轉(zhuǎn)換為……

　　2.Colo.：Colorado(美國科羅拉多州)的縮寫形式。

　　3.Green algae:綠藻

　　4....trick them into producing hydrogen：……想方設(shè)法使它們產(chǎn)生氫。trick作為動(dòng)詞，有“欺騙、哄騙”的意思，但是在這里的意思是“設(shè)法”或“采取措施”。

　　練習(xí)：

　　1.What does the writer say about plants concerning solar enefgy?

　　A PlanLs are the real experts m producing solar energy

　　B Plants have been used to produce solar energy

　　C Plants have been using solar energy for billions of years

　　D Plants have been a source of solar energy

　　2 Why do some scientists study how plants convert sunlight carbon dioxide, and water into sugars and starches?

　　A Because they want algae to produce sugars and starches

　　B Because they want green plants to become a new source of energy

　　C Because they want to turn plant sugars to a new form of energy

　　D Because they wanl to make photosynthesis more efficient

　　3 According to the fifth paragraph,under what condltlons are algae able to use solar energy to make hydrogen?

　　A When there is a lot of Oxygen in the air.

　　B When there is no oxygen in the air.

　　C When photosynthesis is taking place

　　D When enough starch ls stored

　　4 Researchers have met with difficulties when trying to make algae produce hydrogen efficiently.Which one of the fol1owing is one such difficulty?

　　A lt is not possibe to remove sulfate from the environment

　　B It is not posslble to work ln an air free envirnment to produce hydrogen

　　C It is not easy to make sugars instead of hydrogen

　　D It is too slow for lgae to produce hydrogen when the sulfa is removed

　　5 What is NOT true of algae?

　　A They are easy to grow

　　B They can be a very good fuel source

　　C They are cheap to eat

　　D They can be used in many ways

　　答案與題解：

　　1.C 根據(jù)文章第一段最后一句的意思，c是正確選項(xiàng)：植物從來就利用陽光作為能源。

　　2 .B文章第三段說，科學(xué)家企圖將植物或植物類生物細(xì)胞作為微型光合能源供應(yīng)站來研究，并舉例說.他們正在用綠藻進(jìn)行實(shí)驗(yàn)，若成功，綠藻所產(chǎn)生的氫將可用來為汽車的燃料電池充電，所以答案是B。

　　3.B文章第四段告訴我們：...algae will produce hydrogen in an airfree environment沒有空氣的情況肯定就沒有氧氣了。該段最后一句又說，是氧阻止綠藻制造氫。

　　4.D選項(xiàng)A、B部不是正確答案，因?yàn)槎涛牡诹胃嬖V我們，remove sulfate和work ln an airfree environmentt都是可能的，但問題是兩者都有弊端，使氫的制造不那么容易。D所述內(nèi)容就是困難之一：綠藻細(xì)胞因?yàn)闆]有了sulfate而減緩工作速度，因此產(chǎn)生不了多少氫。

　　5.C 根據(jù)短文最后一段的描述，綠藻可以在任何地方生長，它門是很容易使用的燃料能源，而且用途廣泛，所以A、B、C都是正確的描述，不是答案。C是答案，因?yàn)椤癟he organismsare cheap to getand to feed”中的feed是“養(yǎng)殖”的意思，不能解釋為“吃”。

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