人教版（2019）高中英语选择性必修第二册 Unit1_Using_Language_and_Assessing_Your_Progress_and_Video_Time_能力提升练.docxVIP

PAGE 6 Unit1 Using Language and Assessing Your Progress and Video Time 能力提升练 一、阅读理解 （2019辽宁师大附中高二下期末） Stephen Hawking, the most outstanding physicist of his time, has passed away at the age of 76. A family spokesman said Hawking, who was British, died peacefully early Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, England. Hawking was known worldwide for working to explain subjects like the beginning of the universe and the complexity of black holes. He was diagnosed with a disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, at age 21. At the time, doctors predicted he would only live a few years. But he proved them wrong by surviving for more than 50 years and continuing his scientific work. In his 2013 book, My Brief History, Hawking wrote about his first learning of the illness. “I felt it was very unfair--why should this happen to me?” He added, “At the time, I thought my life was over and that I would never realize the potential I felt I had.” “But now, 50 years later, I can be quite satisfied with my life,” he wrote. A sign of his being admired came in October 2017, when Cambridge put Hawking’s 1966 thesis on the Internet for the first time. Demand for the thesis was so high that it caused the universitys website to go down. Hawking said the belief in God who intervenes（介入）in the universe “to make sure the good guys win or get rewarded in the next life” was wishful thinking. “But one can’t help asking the question Why does the universe exist？”he said in 1991.I don’t know an operational way to give the question or the answer，if there is one，a meaning. But it bothers me.” Hawking subscribed to human space travel to the moon and mars he said such missions would help unite humanity in a shared purpose of spreading the human race beyond the Earth. “We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to explore other solar systems Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave t