The planet Mars has always captured the human imagination. There is its redness. We know now that the color comes from chemical reactions that long ago locked up Mars's oxygen in reddish minerals on its surface, causing the "rusting" of the planet. To the ancient people, the red color meant only one thing: blood. From the earliest times, Mars has been associated with bloodshed. Even the astronomical symbol for Mars, a circle with an arrow pointing at 2 o'clock, is supposed to represent a shield and a spears.
As astronomers used telescopes, Mars mythology grew. It was the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli who, in 1877, produced the most lasting bit of Martian folklore. He saw what he took to be long, thin, unnaturally straight lines on the Martian surface. He called them canali, a word that can translate into English either as "channels" or "canals." Unfortunately, the latter translation was used, and the canals of Mars were born. Of course, if there were canals, there had to be canal builders, so once more Mars was peopled with all manner of intelligent life forms!
In 1965 Mariner 4 sent back first close-up pictures of the Martian surface. Not only were there no canals, but Mariner 4 and the spacecraft that followed revealed a planet that was a cratered, lifeless desert. We have subsequently learned that Mars is home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the entire solar system, and to a canyon system stretching for almost 3,000 miles around the Martian equator. The atmosphere is extremely thin (equivalent to that at 130,000 feet above Earth) and made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide. The surface is cold, almost never getting above freezing even at the summertime equator.
Perhaps the greatest surprise were the photographs from Mariner 9 in 1971 and 1972 that showed channels on the surface. Now these were not Schiaparelli's canali there's, no way these channels could be seen by even the most powerful earthbound telescope. They are unmistakable water courses, however. There is no water in them now, but they trace out the path of water that flowed in the past. They are like the dry river of the American West, through which water from rain flows, but which are dry most of the time. Water once ran on the surface of Mars.
New explorations on Mars by the spacecraft Pathfinder, due to arrive on the planet's surface in 1997, are planned to give scientists more information about possible past life on Mars. One of Pathfinder's missions will be to lay the foundation for future efforts to find fossil remains of living things. The landing site for the Mars Pathfinder is going to be the mouth of a flood channel called Ares Vallis.

1. It can be inferred from the passage that myths about Mars
(A) are widely believed today
(B) have been dispelled by current space exploration
(C) are based on scientific facts
(D) depict it as a lifeless planet

2. Which of the following have NOT been a source of information about Mars?
(A) Spacecraft
(B) Telescopes
(C) Conjecture
(D) Astronauts
3. The phrase "the latter" in line 21 refers to
(A) canals
(B) canali
(C) channels
(D) unusual straight lines

4. Where in the passage does the author give information about the topography of Mars?
(A) Lines 2-6
(B) Lines 26-32
(C) Lines 38-46
(D) Lines 58-62

5. The word "powerful" in line 46 is closest in meaning to
(A) expensive
(B) dominant
(C) influential
(D) strong

6. According to the passage, the redness of Mars is a result of
(A) a chemical reaction on the planet surface
(B) the old age of the planet
(C) the reflection of the Sun
(D) an abundance of oxygen in the planet's atmosphere

7. Why do scientists think that the channels of Mars were waterways?
(A) Bones have been found there.
(B) They still have a little water in them.
(C) They resemble a similar system on Earth.
(D) They are straight and narrow.

8. According to the passage, Pathfinder's mission to Mars includes
(A) preparing for future fossil-finding expeditions
(B) placing specialized equipment on the planet's surface
(C) checking for flood damage
(D) bringing back fossils for further study

Kunci Jawaban
1.B, 2.D, 3.A, 4.B, 5.D, 6.B, 7.C, 8.D