According to the passage, as a storm approaches, faraway objects look ______.
A.hazy because of dust in the air
B.clearer because air pressure is high
C.clearer because air pressure is dropping
D.distorted because of storm clouds
The clouds had spread and nearly______the entire sky.
A.separated
B.hidden
C.blocked
D.covered
A.visible
B.insight
C.obvious
D.apparent
In this passage, what does the term "coalescence" refer to?
A.The gathering of small clouds to form. larger clouds.
B.The growth of droplets.
C.The effect of gravity on precipitation.
D.The movement of dust particles in the sunlight.
idly watching the clouds stretch and tear, or, if the day is windy, scud toward the horizon.
A.move quickly
B.stretch fast
C.roam
D.roll fast
The first indications a mariner will have of the approach of a warm front will be ______.
A.large cumulonimbus (thunderclouds) building up
B.high cirrus clouds gradually changing to cirrostratus and then to altostratus
C.fog caused by the warm air passing over the cooler water
D.low dark clouds accompanied by intermittent rain
Huangshan Mountain is famous for its ().
A. strangely-shaped pines
B. rock formations
C. sea of clouds
D. hot springs
A.they do not land there
B.there are no clouds at all
C.they can cross the ice with special equipment
D.it is very cold
The funeral was over, -the tread of many feet, bearing the heavy burden of two broken lives, had been to the lonely graveyard, and had come again, -each footstep lighter and more unconstrained as each one went his way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful life.
The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal "tick-tock, tick-cock," in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was there that sense of a stillness that can be left, -such as settles down on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed though its doors for the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room was shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could fall through a little heart-shaped hole in the window-shutter, -for except on solemn visits, or prayer-meeting or weddings, or funerals, that room formed no part of the daily family scenery.
The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace and wide stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows of old-fashioned splint-bottomed chairs against the wall. A table scoured no snowy whiteness, and a little work-stand whereon lay the Bible, the Missionary Herald, and the Weekly Christian Mirror, before named, formed the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not be forgotten, -a great sea-chest, which had been the companion of Zephaniah through all the countries of the earth. Old, and battered, and unsightly it looked, yet report said that there was good store within of that which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and, indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done -when a woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing -smack was run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage a family of orphans, -in all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors usually showed to Captain Pennel's sea-chest.
Surrounding the earth was an unbroken canopy of clouds miles thick and made up mostly of water vapor. Rain falling toward the still-hot earth was heated to steam and rose to the clouds again. After many millions of years, as the earth continued to cool, its surface temperature fell below the boiling point of water. Rainwater could now remain on the earth, covering its whole surface except for the higher places on earth that had been formed from the lighter rock materials.
In 1970, scientists had pieced together evidence that the lighter rock materials had formed one huge continent by a vast ocean. Then, about 200 million years ago, the great continent began to break up, the pieces moving slowly apart.
The onrushing waters of the single huge ocean now entered and filled the spaces between the separating continents--and became the several oceans and seas we know today.
This passage mainly talks about ______.
A.the origin of the earth
B.the origin of the ocean
C.the history of the earth
D.the forming of the earth's crust