Read the following passage and mark the letter A. B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct word for each of the blanks from 51 to 60.
Out of This World - Tourism in Space
Some of us will soon be booking holidays in space! The idea may appear too fantastic to be true, but the space-tour operators of the future seem to (51) _____ it as a real possibility.
They are not alone. NASA, America's space agency, and the Space Transportation Association, a group of 16 aerospace companies, are (52) _____ on a detailed study ‘with a view to establishing a US space tourism business’.
It has been reported that 2005 will see the start of (53) _____ tourism in space. By around 2010 at least one hotel will have been been which tourists could stay for up to a week.
The general plan, apparently, is to take passengers first to a height of 50 miles - the official boundary of space. There they will get a taste of “weightlessness” for about two minutes and some spectacular (54) _____ of the Earth. It will cost them around £400,000 each. The money would be used to help developa fleet of vehicles and space hotels.
The next step would be to (55) _____ the up-and-down trips to orbital flights (probably two or three circles of the Earth, for as many as 20 passengers at a time), giving four hours in which to take pictures and enjoy some weightlessness games. By 2020, (56) _____ will have reduced the cost of a ticket to £4.000.
In Japan, the Tokyo-based Shimizy Corporation has set a target date of2020 for its orbiting space resort, to which it (57) _____ to shuttle parties of 64 tourists, eventually planning sightseeing trips to the Moon.
Its brochure says that a hotel will be constructed in space first. This will be followed by one ‘Lunar Hotel’ on the Moon. These two hotels, it adds, will be ‘the basis for an entire space resort network’.
Guests will leave from the International Space Port, (58) _____ in the Pacific Ocean. In less than an hour they will arrive at a large space station, and spend three days and two nights in rooms which will, ‘provide artificial gravity so that everyone will be able to enjoy space travel without fully (59) _____ themselves to weightlessness.’ The room modules will be in a doughnut-shaped 140-metre-diametre circle frame that will rotate at 3 rpm. This rotation will produce an artificial gravity level which will (60) _____ guests to sleep, stand, walk and take showers as easily as on Earth.
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions .
Talking to ... Elton John
Q Do you miss doing the ordinary things in life?
I like plodding round the kitchen doing the things everybody else does. I love going to the supermarket to do the shopping. I come back with far more stuff than I need. When I am on holiday in St. Tropez, I love to get up at six in the morning to get the fresh bread. So people often see me wheeling my trolley round and the supermarkets in the town.
Q Do you mind being recognised?
I’ve tried going out in disguise, but in the end most people recognize me. Ninety-nine per cent are very pleasant, very polite. But it's frustrating if you get out of bed on the wrong side - and you do some days - and someone asks you for an autograph and they haven’t got a pen or a piece of paper. But I enjoy my popularity; I don’t see the point in being a recluse.
Q You once said that you’re a bit of a loner.
Yeah, I always have been. By that I don’t mean that I’m lonely. It’s just that I like to be my own boss all the time. Don’t confuse that with being lonely because I’m not. I have lots of great friends around me. Being successful has given me the confidence to do things I wouldn’t have had the courage to do otherwise. But I still retain that shyness when I first meet people. I'm never going to get rid of that.
Q You like your food, don’t you?
I’m one of those people who only has to look at a doughnut and I immediately put on 2 pounds without even eating it. I’ve always had a problem with my weight. It doesn’t bother me too much, although I get depressed when I’m very overvveight. I dieted once and I became so obsessed that I nearly made myself ill. But I’m happy with the way I am at the moment. If you exercise at least three or four times a week and play tennis, then it’s no problem, but you have to keep at it. (…)
Q Do you think you will still be touring and making records in another ten years’ time?
I can’t keep touring and making records for the rest of my life — I’ve got to try something different now and then. One thing I am interested in doing is writing a musical.
Q So do you think we will see you on stage in your own musical one day?
I doubt it. I’m not interested in going into a theatre and performing every night. You may find that strange but if you’re on tour, you’re changing cities. I played at the Hammersmith Odeon once for 14 nights and by the end of it I was going crazy. It was like going to the office. People who actually appear in plays and musicals for two or three years have my greatest sympathy and admiration. I never consider what I do as work.
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
Ocean water plays an indispensable role in supporting life. The great ocean basins hold about 300 million cubic miles of water. From this vast amount, about 80,000 cubic miles of water are sucked into the atmosphere each year by evaporation and returned by precipitation and drainage to the ocean. More than 24,000 cubic miles of rain descend annually upon the continents. This vast amount is required to replenish the lakes and streams, springs and water tables on which all flora and fauna are dependent. Thus, the hydrosphere permits organic existence.
The hydrosphere has strange characteristics because water has properties unlike those of any other liquid. One anomaly is that water upon freezing expands by about 9 percent, whereas most liquids contract on cooling. For this reason, ice floats on water bodies instead of sinking to the bottom. If the ice sank, the hydrosphere would soon be frozen solidly, except for a thin layer of surface melt water during the summer season. Thus, all auqatic life would be destroyed and the interchange of warm and cold currents, which moderates climate, would be notably absent.
Another outstanding characteristic of water is that water has a heat capacity which is the highest of all liquids and solids except ammonia. This characteristic enables the oceans to absorb and store vast quantities of heat, thereby often preventing climatic extremes. In addition, water dissolves more substances than any other liquid. It is this characteristic which helps make oceans a great storehouse for minerals which have been washed down from the continents. In several areas of the world these minerals are being commercially exploited. Solar evaporation of salt is widely practised, potash is extracted from the Dead Sea, and magnesium is produced from sea water along the American Gulf Coast.