Section C

Directions: Read the passage carefully. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Why should mankind explore space? Perhaps the best answer lies in our genetic makeup as human beings. What prompted our distant ancestors to move from the trees into the plains, and on into all possible areas and environments? _____67 _ _____. The wider the distribution of a species, the better its chance of survival.

Exploration also allows minerals and other potential resources to be located. Additional resources are always beneficial when used wisely, and can increase our chances of survival. Knowledge or techniques acquired through exploration, or preparing to explore, filter from the developers into society at large. _____68 _ _____. Also, we have already benefited from other by-products, including improvements in earthquake prediction — which has saved many lives — in satellites used for weather forecasting and in communications systems. Even non-stick saucepans and mirrored sunglasses are by-products of technological developments in the space industry!

_____69 _ _____. The chances of a large comet (彗星) hitting the Earth are small, but it could happen in time. Such strikes in the past may account for the extinction of dinosaurs and other species. Human technology is reaching the point where it might be able to detect the possibility of this happening, and enable us to minimize the damage, or prevent it completely, allowing us as a species to avoid extinction.

In certain circumstances, life on Earth may become impossible: over-population or wide spread diseases, for instance, might eventually force us to find other places to live. While the earth is the only planet known to sustain life, surely the adaptive ability of humans would allow us to inhabit other planets and moons. It is true that the lifestyle would be different, but human life and cultures have adapted in the past and surely could in the future. _____70 _ _____.

【语篇导读】本文是一篇说明文。作者讲述了地球环境和人类的关系。

A. The techniques may have medical applications which can improve the length or quality of our lives.

B. Space allows us to expand and succeed: for the sake of everyone on the earth, now and in the future, space exploration is essential.

C. The mysterious space objects varying in size have been fascinated scientists and scholars for years.

D. It appears that we are driven to ensure the success and continuation of not just our own genes, but of the species as a whole.

E. Therefore it still poses a problem for us human beings whether to explore the space at the cost of our own homelands

F. While space may hold many wonders and explanations of how the universe was formed or how it works, it also holds dangers.