For centuries, explorers have risked their lives venturing into the unknown for reasons that were to varying degrees economic an

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问题    For centuries, explorers have risked their lives venturing into the unknown for reasons that were to varying degrees economic and nationalistic. Columbus went west to look for better trade routes to the Orient and to promote the greater glory of Spain. Lewis and Clark journeyed into the American wilderness to find out what the US had acquired when it purchased Louisiana, and the Appolo astronauts rocketed to the moon in a dramatic show of technological muscle during the cold war.
   Although their missions blended commercial and political-military imperatives, the explorers involved all accomplished some significant science simply by going where no scientists had gone.
   Today Mars looms as humanity’s next great terra incognita. And with doubtful prospects for a short- term financial return, with the cold war a rapidly fading memory and amid a growing emphasis on international cooperation in large space ventures, it is-clear that imperatives other than profits or nationalism will have to compel human beings to leave their tracks on the planet’s reddish surface. Could it be that science. which has long played a minor role in exploration, is at last destined to take a leading role? The question naturally invites a couple of others: Are there experiments that only humans could do on Mars? Could those experiments pro- vide insights profound enough to justify the expense of sending people across interplanetary space?
   With Mars the scientific stakes are arguably higher than they have ever been. The issue of whether life ever existed on the planet, and whether it persists to this day, has been highlighted by mounting evidence that the Red Planet had abundant stable, liquid water and by the continuing controversy over suggestions that bacterial fossils rode to Earth on a meteorite from Mars. A more conclusive answer about life on Mars, past or present, would give researchers invaluable data about the range of conditions under which a planet can generate the complex chemistry that leads to life, If it could be established that life arose independently on Mars and Earth, the finding would provide the first concrete clues in one of the deepest mysteries in all of science: the prevalence of life in the universe.
At present, a probable inducement for countries to initiate large-scale space ventures is ______.

选项 A、international cooperation
B、scientific research
C、nationalistic reasons
D、long-term profits

答案B

解析分析推理题。短文第三段指出，火星是如今人类的下一个伟大的未知世界．除了经济或国家利益，人类显然还有别的动机去探索火星。然后作者用问句表明了自己的观点：是否以前在探索中起次要作用的科学，注定要在如今的探索活动中起主要作用?这也就是说，如今许多国家进行大范围空间探索的动机已经变成了科学研究。

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For centuries, explorers have risked their lives venturing into the unknown for reasons that were to varying degrees economic an

公共英语四级笔试

公共英语（PETS）