Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs? What about a hurricane? A meteorologist has done some estimates and the results might surprise you.
Let's start with a very simple white puffy cloud — a cumulus cloud（积云）. How much does the water in a cumulus cloud weigh? Peggy LeMone, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, did the numbers. "The water in the little cloud weighs about 550 tons," she calculates. "Or if you want to convert it to something that might be a little more meaningful … think of elephants."
The thought of a hundred elephants-worth of water suspended in the sky begs another question — what keeps it up there?
"First of all, the water isn't in elephant sized particles（微粒）, it's in tiny tiny tiny particles," explains LeMone. And those particles float on the warmer air that's rising below. But still, the concept of so much water floating in the sky was surprising even to a meteorologist like LeMone. "I had no idea how much a cloud would weigh, actually, when I started the calculations," she says.
So how many elephant units of water are inside a big storm cloud—10 times bigger all the way around than the "puffy" cumulus cloud? Again, LeMone did the numbers: About 200,000 elephants.
Now, ratchet up the calculations for a hurricane about the size of Missouri and the figures get really massive. "What we're doing is weighing the water in one cubic meter theoretically pulled from a cloud and then multiplying by the number of meters in a whole hurricane," she explains.
The result? Forty million elephants. That means the water in one hurricane weighs more than all the elephants on the planet. Perhaps even more than all the elephants that have ever lived on the planet.
小题1:The weight of is NOT mentioned in the passage.
A．a cumulus cloud
B．a tornado
C．a hurricane
D．a storm cloud小题2:How did Peggy LeMone feel about the result of her calculations?
A．She found it not convincing.
B．She thought it needed further calculations.
C．She was quite surprised at it.
D．She considered the calculations inaccurate.小题3:What can be inferred from the passage?
A．A storm cloud weighs about 200,000 elephants.
B．The water in a hurricane weighs more than that in any other kind of cloud.
C．There are less than forty million elephants living on the earth.
D．The water in the cloud is in very tiny partials.
小题1:B
小题2:C
小题3:C
题目分析:本文是一篇说明文，说明了气象学专家对以多云和飓风、一朵积云重量进行测试，测量结果令人吃惊
小题1:细节题，由第一段第一行Ever wonder how much a cloud weighs? What about a hurricane和第二段第一行a cumulus cloud可以知道答案，故选B。
小题2:细节题，由第一段最后一句A meteorologist has done some estimates and the results might surprise you.可以知道答案，所以选C。
小题3:细节题，由最后一段最后一句Perhaps even more than all the elephants that have ever lived on the planet可以知道答案，所以选C
点评：本文主要考查细节题，做细节题的关键是找出原文的根据，认真核查题支和原文的异同，常犯错误有：绝对化语言，范围扩大或缩小，以偏概全，张冠李戴等。考生首先要仔细阅读短文，完整了解信息，准确把握作者观点。