《考研英语阅读理解100篇 高分版》 Unit 23 - TEXT FOUR

Photosynthesis is the basis of life on Earth. Thermodynamics is the order and disorder in the universe. Put them together and you have the makings of a book that may reorder the way you think about the world. And that is what Oliver Morton, news editor at Nature (and who once worked for this paper), has done.
Mr. Morton's thesis is that modern biology has become so focused on the movement of information, in the form of genes, that it has neglected the processes needed to move that information around: in essence, thermodynamics. People talk glibly of “using up” energy when in fact they are doing no such thing. What is actually used up is order. An energy flow drives the process, but it is disorder (or “entropy”, to use the jargon) that changes, by increasing.
A highly ordered system such as a living thing thus needs an abundant supply of negative entropy (or unentropy, or call it what you will) to maintain its internal order. That negative entropy comes from the sun and is captured by photosynthesis, which uses light to split water molecules and combines the resulting hydrogen with carbon dioxide to form sugars. The sugars are a store of negative entropy that can be used elsewhere. The waste product, conveniently for the animals of Earth, is oxygen.
The book, then, is in part a refrain in praise of photosynthesis, the Earth's energy and order currency-exchange market. It is also an entertaining history of how the subject arrived where it is today—and an illuminating insight for the non-scientist into how the magisterial pronouncements of science are every bit as much the result of sausage-making as Bismarck's description of the process of legislation.
The text is peppered with vignettes and asides that highlight science's faltering march forward on the backs of researchers, who are by turns quirky and visionary. The process of discovery is not chronological but is forever folding back on itself, revisiting half-solved problems. Mr. Morton is careful to point out where progress has been impeded by hubris or tucked away in academic literature.
There is also, of course, the inevitable warning. Having perfected the energy-into-order recipe over billions of years, photosynthesis has left a great deal of waste in the Earth, as well as contributing oxygen to the atmosphere. That buried waste—coal, oil and natural gas—is what powers the industrial revolution still sweeping the Earth. By reuniting the two waste products of photosynthesis—oxygen in the air and carbon in the ground—this revolution has fuelled a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide three times higher than any previous rise that can be measured. The system—the interaction between life and its surroundings: the atmosphere, the oceans and the upper levels of the Earth's crust—has been pushed out of equilibrium.
Mr. Morton argues that the way in which industrialised humanity is interfering with the homeostatic process can be undone—not by way of a single, magic bullet, but by pursuit of a number of ultimately achievable goals. The damage is done but it is, he says, reparable. Humanity had better hope he is right.
1. According to Morton's thesis, which one of the following statements is TRUE of entropy?
[A] What matters is not energy, but entropy.
[B] It is entropy that makes an energy flow possible.
[C] As an energy flows, entropy is decreased.
[D] As an energy flows, entropy is increased.
2. A living thing needs an abundant supply of negative entropy because _____.
[A] there is a lot of entropy in the ordered system
[B] the entropy is constantly decreasing in the system
[C] the order is constantly increasing in the system
[D] the thermodynamic is taking effect in the system
3. The word “refrain” (Line 1, Paragraph 4) most probably means _____.
[A] deny
[B] restrain
[C] repetition
[D] confirmation
4. According to Mr. Morton's book, science can best be described as _____.
[A] vision of some quirky researchers
[B] reconsideration of problems that are partially addressed
[C] deliberate mystery-making to the non-scientists
[D] a process of legislation of academic literature
5. Towards the prospect described by Mr. Morton, the author's attitude can best be described as _____.
[A] positive
[B] negative
[C] skeptical
[D] unclear