Exploration of the Titanic
After resting on the ocean floor, split asunder and rusting, for nearly three-quarters of a century, a great ship seemed to cone alive again. The saga of the White Star liner Titanic, which struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in 1912, carrying more than 1,500 passengers to their death, has been celebrated in print and on film, in poetry and song. But last week what had been legendary suddenly became real. As they viewed videotapes and photographs of the sunken leviathan, millions of people around the world could sense her mass, her eerie quiet and the ruined splendor of a lost age.
Watching on television, they vicariously joined the undersea craft Alvin and Jason Jr. (J.J.) as they toured the wreckage of the luxury liner, wandering across the decks past corroded bollards, peering into the officer’s quarters and through rust-curtained portholes. Views of the railings where doomed passengers and crewmembers stood evoked images of the moonless night 74years ago when the great ship slipped beneath the waves.
The two-minute videotape and nine photographs, all in color and shot 12,500ft.under the North Atlantic, were a tiny sample of 60 hours of video and 60,000 stills garnered during the twelve-day exploration. They are released at a Washington press conference conducted by Marine Geologist Robert Ballard, 44, who led the teams from the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution that found the Titanic last September and revisited it this July.
Recounting the highlights of what has already become the most celebrated feat of underwater exploration, Ballard revealed some startling new information. His deep-diving craft failed to find the 300-ft. gash that, according to legend, was torn in the Titanic’s hull when the ship plowed into the iceberg. Instead, he suggested, the collision had buckled the ship’s plates, allowing water to pour in. He also brought back evidence that the ship broke apart not when she hit bottom, as he had thought when viewing the first Titanic images last September, but as she sank: the stern, which settled on the bottom almost 1,800ft. from the bow, had swiveled 180 on its way down.
1. What is the best title for this passage?
[A] New Information about the Sunken Ship.
[B] Exploration of the Titanic.
[C] To watch the Videotape.
[D] To explore the Titanic with High Tech.
2. How did the viewers feel when watching the videotape?
[A] They felt rather sad, and felt they themselves took part in the exploration.
[B] They felt keenly for it.
[C] They felt rather bad about it.
[D] They felt out of spirits.
3. When did the great ship sink?
[A] In 1912.
[B] She sank in its maiden voyage in 1912.
[C] She sank in its second voyage in 1912.
[D] She sank in its first voyage in 1912.
4. What did Robert reveal at a press conference?
[A] He revealed some startling information.
[B] He said nothing.
[C] He complained the exploration was very hard.
[D] He revealed the success of their work.
What does the first sentence imply?
[A] It is not really an enlightened age.
[B] It is different from an enlightened age.
[C] It is the same as an enlightened age.
[D] It is like an enlightened age.
What is the main argument men have raised against women?
[A] Women are lack of cold reasoning.
[B] They depend on intuition too much.
[C] They are unreliable and irrational.
[C] They are too still look down upon women.
Men Are Carrying on a Sex-fight
This is supposed to be an enlightened age, but you wouldn’t think of if you could heat what the average man thinks of the average woman/ Women won their independence years ago. After a long, bitter struggle, they now enjoy the same educational opportunities as men in most parts of the world. They have proved repeatedly that they are equal and often superior to men in almost every field. The hard-fought battle for recognition has been won, but it is by no means over. It is men, not women who still carry on the sex war because their attitude remains basically hostile. Even in the most progressive societies, women continue to be regarded as second-rate citizens. To hear some men talk, you’d think that women belonged to a different species!
On the surface, the comments made by men about women’s abilities seem light-hearted. The same tired jokes about women drivers are repeated day in, day out. This apparent light-heartedness dose not conceal the real contempt that men feel for women. However much men sneer at women, their claims to superiority are not borne out by statistics. Let’s consider the matter of driving, for instance. We all know that women cause far fewer accidents than men. They are too conscientious and responsible to drive like maniacs. But this is a minor quibble. Women have succeeded in any job you care to name. As politicians, soldiers, doctors, factory-hands, university professors, farmers, company directors, lawyers, bus-conductors, scientists and presidents of countries they have often put men to shame. And we must remember that they frequently succeed brilliantly in all these fields in addition to bearing and rearing children.
Yet men go on maintaining the fiction that there are many jobs women can’t don Top-level political negotiation between countries, business and banking are almost entirely controlled by men, who jealously guard their so-called ‘rights’. Even in otherwise enlightened places like Switzerland women haven’t even been given the cote. This situation is preposterous! The arguments that men put forward to exclude women from these fields are all too familiar. Women, they say, are unreliable and irrational. They depend too little on cool reasoning and too much on intuition and instinct to arrive at decisions. They are not even capable of thinking clearly. Yet when women prove their abilities, men refuse to acknowledge them and give them their due. So much for a man’s ability to think clearly!
The truth is that men cling to their supremacy because of their basic inferiority complex. They shun real competition. They know in their hearts that women are superior and they are afraid of being beaten at their own game. One of the most important tasks in the world is to achieve peace between the nations. You can be sure that if women were allowed to sit round the conference table, they would succeed brilliantly, as they always do, there men have failed for centuries. Some things are too important to be left to men!
1. What does the first sentence imply?
[A] It is not really an enlightened age.
[B] It is different from an enlightened age.
[C] It is the same as an enlightened age.
[D] It is like an enlightened age.
2. Why do men carry on the sex war against women?
[A] Because of their inferiority.
[B] Because they shun real competition.
[C] Because of their claim to supremacy.
[D] Because they still look down upon women.
3. The “fiction” is closest in meaning to
[A] Novel.
[B] Man-made idea.
[C] False idea.
[D] Story.
4. What is the main argument men have raised against women?
[A] Women are lack of cold reasoning.
[B] They depend on intuition too much.
[C] They are unreliable and irrational.
[C] They are too still look down upon women.