Which is sillier: denying we ever went to the moon or trying to convince the tru

Which is sillier: denying we ever went to the moon ortrying to convince the true nonbelievers?

Once upon a time – July 20, 1969, to be specific – twomen got out of their little spaceship and wandered around on the moon for awhile. Ten more men walked on the moon over the next three and a half years.The end.

Unfortunately, not quite. A fair number of Americansthink that this whole business of moon landings really is a fairy tale. Theybelieve that the landings were a big hoax (骗局) staged inthe Mojave Desert, to convince everyone that U.S. technology was the “bestest”in the whole wide world.

Which is the harder thing to do: Send men to the moonor make believe we did? The fact is the physics behind sending people to themoon is simple. You can do it with computers whose entire memory capacities cannow fit on chips the size of postage stamps and that cost about as much as,well, a postage stamp. I know you can because we did.

However, last fall NASA considered spending $15,000 ona public-relations campaign to convince the unimpressed that Americans had infact gone to the moon. That idea was mostly a reaction to a Fox televisionprogram, first aired in February 2001, that claimed to expose the hoax. Theshow’s creator is a publicity hound (猎狗) who haslived up to the name in more ways than one by hounding Buzz Aldrin, the secondman on the moon. Mr. X (as I will call him, thereby denying him the joyoussight of his name in print) recently followed Buzz Aldrin around and called him“a thief, liar and coward” until the 72-year-old astronaut finally lost it andhit the 37-year-old Mr. X in the face.

Anyway, NASA’s publicity campaign began to slow down.The nonbelievers took the campaign as NASA’s effort to hide something while thebelievers said that $15,000 to convince people that the world was round — Imean, that we had gone to the moon — was simply a waste of money. (Actually,the $15,000 was supposed to pay for an article by James E. Oberg, an astronomywriter who, with Aldrin, has contributed to Scientific American.)

If NASA’s not paying Oberg, perhaps it could put themoney to good use by hiring two big guys to drag Neil Armstrong out of thehouse. Armstrong is an extremely private man, but he is also the first man onthe moon, so maybe he has a duty to be a bit more outspoken about theexperience. Or NASA could just buy Aldrin a commemorate plaque (纪念匾) for his recent touch on the face of Mr. X.

1.We can learn from Paragraphs 2 and 3 that someAmericans believe _______.

A．moon landingswere invented

B．U.S.technology was the best

C．moon landingended successfully

D．the MojaveDesert was the launching base

2.According to the writer, which of the following isto blame for the story about the hoax?

A．NASA’s publicity campaign.               B．The Foxtelevision program.

C．Buzz Aldrin.                            D．James E.Oberg.

3.According to the writer, Mr. X _______.

A．told afaithful story                      B．was nottreated properly

C．was atalented creator                    D．had a badreputation

4.The believers think that NASA’s publicity campaignis ________.

A．proof to hidethe truth

B．stupid andunnecessary

C．needed toconvince the non-believers

D．important todevelop space technology

5.The tone of the article is _______.

A．angry             B．conversational      C．humorous         D．matter-of-fact

试题答案

【答案】

1.A

2.B

3.D

4.B

5.C

【解析】

试题