The Antarctica is all ice all year round. The warmest temperature ever recorded (所记录的) there is zero, at the South Pole. Explorers (探险家) used to think that a place so cold would have a heavy snowfall. But less than ten inches of snow falls each year. That is less than half an inch of water. Ten times that much moisture (水份) falls in parts of the Sahara.
The little snow that falls in Antarctica never melts (融化). It continues to pile up deeper and deeper year after year and century after century. When the snow gets to be about eighty feet deep it is turned to ice by the weight of snow above it.
1. Antarctica is called a desert because it______
A. is sandy. B. has the same temperature as a desert.
C. has little moisture and no lakes or rivers. D. there are no people there.
2. Antarctica has______
A. ten times as much moisture as the Sahara.
B. the same amount of moisture as the Sahara.
C. about one-tenth of the moisture of the Sahara.
D. none of the above.
3. The snow in Antarctica is very deep because it______
A. never stops falling. B. piles up year after year.
C. never melts. D. both B and C.
4. The snow turns to ice when______
A. it gets wet. B. the next snowfall comes.
C. the temperature gets colder. D. the snow above it is heavy enough.
5. The best title (题目) for the passage is ______
A. A Strange Continent B. An Ice Continent
C. Snowfall at the South Pole D. The World’s Desert
答案：1C 2 A 3 D 4 B 5 B
