【考点】OA：健康环保类阅读
【分析】本文属于科普说明文，主要向我们讲述了鱼龙的身体弯曲的原因以及结果
罗斯柴尔德博士通过实验推翻了以前关于鱼龙进化的一些猜测
【解答】61．A 细节理解题．根据第一段If a diver surfaces too quickly，he may suffer the bends．Nitrogen（氮） dissolved（溶解） in his blood is suddenly liberated by the reduction of pressure．可知潜水员如果露出水面太快身体会弯曲，故选A
62．B 推理判断题．根据第三段to find out how widespread the problem was in the past和to investigate was how ichthyosaurs adapted to the problem of decompression可知罗斯柴尔德博士的研究目的是为了探讨鱼龙如何适应减压的问题，故 选B
63．C 推理判断题．根据第四段he assumed that signs of the bends would be rarer in younger fossils，接下来又说Instead，he was astonished to discover the opposite．可知，他开始时所认为的与实验得出的结论不符，因此说他的实验结果和他 开始的预测相反，故选C
【答案】A
【解析】推理判断题．根据第四段If ichthyosaurs did evolve an anti﹣decompressionmeans…But that is not what Dr Rothschild thinkshappened．可知，罗斯柴尔德博士并不认可鱼龙的抗溶解进化途径．因此A正确；误解分析：B项文章中没有提及；文章只是说they have surfaced to escape apredator，并不是说鱼龙的灭绝是鲨鱼造成的，因此C错；D项与罗斯柴尔德博士的看法正好相反；故选A
【点评】做阅读理解时要快速的浏览全文，把握文章主旨大意，带着问题回到原文，寻找细节或概括相应的答案，最后要理清作者写作思路
30．（12分）Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel．And he surely deserves additional praise：the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism
I say clever because anti﹣slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War．H．B．Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is only the most famous example．These early stories dealt directly with slavery．With minor exceptions，Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely．He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story
Again and again，in the postwar years，Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race．Consider the most controversial，at least today，of Twain's novels，Adventures of Huckleberry Finn．Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn，Twain's most widely read tale．Once upon a time，people hated the book because it struckthemas rude．Twain himself wrote that those who banned the book considered the novel"trash and suitable only for the slums（贫民窟）．"More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim，the escaped slave，and many occurrences of the word nigger．（The term Nigger Jim，for which the novel is often severely criticized，never appears in it．）
But the attacks were and are silly﹣and miss the point．The novel is strongly anti﹣slavery．Jim's search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic．As J．Chadwick has pointed out，the character of Jim was a first in American fiction﹣a recognition that the slave had two personalities，"the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual：Jim，the father and the man．" There is much more．Twain's mystery novel Pudd'nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day．Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior （低等的） to whites，especially in intelligence，Twain's tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth．A slave gave birth to her master's baby and，for fear that the child should be sold South，switched him for the master's baby by his wife．The slave's light﹣skinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave﹣holding class．The master's wife's baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave
The point was difficult to miss：nurture （养育），not nature，was the key to social status．The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice﹣manner of speech，for example﹣were，to Twain，indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims
Twain's racial tone was not perfect．One is left uneasy，for example，by the lengthy passage in his autobiography （自传） about how much he loved what were called"nigger shows"in his youth﹣mostly with white men performing in black﹣face﹣and his delight in getting his mother to laugh at them．Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality．His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that they did not
Was Twain a racist？Asking the questioning the 21 stcentury is as wise as asking the same of Lincoln．If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the"wisdom"of the considered moral judgments of the present，we will find nothing but error．Lincoln，who believed the black man the inferior of the white，fought and won a war to free him．And Twain，raised in a slave state，briefly a soldier，and inventor of Jim，may have done more to anger the nation over racial injustice and awaken its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past century