“Welcome to our new ‘classroom’!” said Chen Dong, one of the three astronauts of the Shenzhou XIV mission.

They were giving a science class 400 kilometers above Earth on October 12. It was the third space class from the Tiangong Space Station, but the first one from the Wentian lab module (实验舱) since its launch in July. The former two classes were held in the Tianhe core module (核心舱).

What does the new “classroom” look like? Chen, together with Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe, showed us around. “The beds in the Tianhe module are placed horizontally (横着), while our beds are kept upright,” said Liu. That means astronauts in the Wentian lab module need to sleep standing up! But as Liu explained, people don’t feel any difference because there’s no gravity (重力) in space. Astronauts can even sleep on the ceiling or upside down!

The astronauts also showed their “space farm”, where lettuce, wheat, thale cress (拟南芥) and rice are grown. “Take a picture!” “Send the picture!” Through a voice-controlled camera, Chen already sent a picture of the thale cress to scientists on Earth. Then he used scissors to cut a sample (样本). “I’ll put it into a fridge at-80℃and later give it lo scientists on Earth,” said Chen. Scientists will study how the environment of space affects the growth of plants.

“Can you see the water drops coming from the leaves? This is called ‘guttation’ (植物吐水现象).” said Liu, holding the well-grown rice. In space, the water drops are much bigger than those on Earth. So people can clearly see the guttation.

“We hope in the near future, we can harvest the food grown on our own,” said Chen. “Maybe one day, we can harvest food on the other planets like the moon or even Mars!”

【小题1】How do astronauts in the Wentian module sleep?

A．

B．

C．

D．

【小题2】How do scientists on Earth study the plants in the space station?

A．By growing the plants in space themselves.

B．By taking and collecting pictures themselves.

C．By studying the samples astronauts bring back.

D．By watching them through real-time (实时) video cameras.

【小题3】What does the underlined word “it” in Para. 4 refer to?

A．A picture.

B．A pack of rice.

C．A piece of lettuce.

D．A piece of thale cress.

【小题4】What can we infer (推测) from the last paragraph?

A．Farmers can get crops on the moon soon.

B．“Guttation” can be seen from leaves of rice.

C．Scientists will try to grow food on the moon or even Mars.

D．Lettuce, wheat, thale cress will be grown on other planets, too.