2022高考英语阅读理解专题练习之说明文
（A）
Imagine you had never tasted lemonade. You would still probably assume that lemon juice mixed with sugar tastes better than lemon juice alone. Because you know what lemons taste like, and you know what sugar tastes like.
You can recall those past experiences, and make a prediction about your response to something new. Researchers call the ability to predict our future emotional state "affective forecasting". And some have suggested that the skill is unique to humans. But is it?
“We combined different liquids and asked participants, the orangutan （猩猩）and the humans, to predict what such novel liquid combinations taste like, and whether they prefer one or the other,” Lund University cognitive scientist Gabriela-Alina Saueiuc told us.
She and her colleagues offered their cocktails（鸡尾酒）to a 21-year-old male orangutan named Naong, who lives in Sweden's Furuvik Zoo. They used four ingredients-cherry juice,
rhubarb juice, lemon juice, and apple cider vinegar-which they combined into six unfamiliar mixtures. Altogether, that made for 24 possible comparisons of one drink against another.
Naong watched the researchers mix his drinks. Then he got to choose from the two sets before him. And in 21 of the 24 trials, Naong matched the researchers' predictions： that his choice would be based on his relative fondness for the separate ingredients. For example, since he liked rhubarb juice better than
lemon juice, he also preferred rhubarb-cherry juice to lemon-cherry juice-despite having had no experience with either.
“We are impressed with Naong's ability to be so consistent in his choices. " Both human and orangutan species seemed to make consistent choices about future events even if they had no previous experience to guide their decision-making.
It's a single study with a single orangutan. But probably we will soon mark yet another skil
l off the list of things that were once thought to be specific to our species. Perhaps what’s truly unique about us is our ongoing search for something unique about us.
1. What did the scientists ask Noang to do in the study?
A. Separate drink ingredients.
B. Choose one out of two mixed drinks.
C. Combine drinks into mixtures.
D. Taste novel liquid combinations.
2.  What is a precondition for the study?
A. Naong could appreciate cocktails.
B. Naong could read the scientists' mind.
C. Naong was unfamiliar with the ingredients,
D. Naong had a preference for certain ingredients.
3. What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A. Similar research findings are expected to follow.
comparisonsB. The research has drawn a safe conclusion.
C. There is a list of all the uniquely human skills.
D. Animals equal humans in every way.
4. What can be a suitable title for the text?
A. Orangutan Taught to Make Predictions.
B. Intelligence Found in the Animal Kingdom.
C. Affective Forecasting： Not Unique to Humans.
D. The On-going Search for Uniquely Human Skills.
（B）
In the 1960s and 1970s, the greatest fear was that the human race, and possibly all advanced life forms on the planet, could be wiped out by nuclear missiles. Today, however, environmental problems have taken over as the greatest risk to life on .
Earth. Scientists are thinking of ways to lower this risk, such as replacing coal and oil with forms of renewable energy. But they are also preparing for the worst: what
can we do if the terrifying scenes in films such as The Day After Tomorrow happen in real life? What is our plan B for Earth?
One option is to explore other planets to see if we could live on them. The most likely choice is Mars, which is relatively close to Earth and has an environment less hostile than that of other planets. Mars has fascinated people since ancient times, and today our interest in Martian exploration is greater than ever before. Besides, more governments are making efforts to educate the public on the Red Planet.
There is no doubt that humankind is drawn towards Mars. However, sending people there will require all the skill, courage and intelligence. While the Moon can be reached within days, it would take months to reach Mars, travelling through dangerous solar radiation. And even if the first settlers do reach Mars safely, they may not be able to return to Earth — ever. Staying alive will be a daily challenge, but as proved by the Biosphere 2 experiment, not impossible. As early as the 1980s, scientists were building Biosphere 2 in the Arizona desert, consisting of a closed space in which people, animals and plants could live together. Although the two-year experiment was not a success, it did provide us with a better understanding of how humans might be able to live on another planet.   
For now, human settlement of Mars is still decades away. Until we are finally able to live on another planet, we need to take much better care of our own. Right now, it's the only one we have!

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