题目内容：

    The tough challenge of a six-month, 3,200-kilometer walk across the South Pole, in the long darkness of the Antarctic winter when temperatures can fall to -90℃, proved irresistible to the experienced British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

Fiennes’s hero, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, wrote “great God, this is an awful place” when he reached the South Pole a century ago, before freezing and starving to death with his team on the return journey.

That journey was made in summer. Nobody before has attempted to cross the pole in winter. In a statement, Fiennes said, “This will be my greatest challenge to date. We will stretch the limits of human endurance.”

However, Fiennes could not explain why anyone should consider such a venture, still less a man aged 68 who has survived cancer, heart surgery and the loss of most of the frozen fingertips on one hand. “It’s what I do,” he said, looking slightly puzzled at the question.

Fiennes, the world’s greatest living explorer, according to the Guinness Book of Records — was the first to cross the Antarctic continent unsupported; the first to cross both polar ice caps; and the first to travel across the globe from pole to pole.

Fiennes admitted his wife, Louise, and their six-year-old daughter were not thrilled. “But I’ve never done anything else; it’s how I earn my living. And you’re much more likely, statistically, to die on the roads than on the polar ice,” he said.

After training in the Swedish Arctic in a relatively balmy -40℃, Fiennes’ team will set sail from London on Dec. 6 on a South African research ship. The ice trek will begin on Mar. 21, the spring equinox (春分) that marks the official start of the polar winter, from the Russian base of Novolazareskaya. Fiennes and his five team members must then climb more than 3,000 meters on to the inland plateau, walk for several hundred kilometers using an ice tractor to pull all the supplies and equipment they need, descend another 3,000 meters and finally reach the Ross Sea. If they reach Captain Scott’s old base at McMurdo Sound by the spring equinox six months later, they will still have to wait for months until the sea ice backs off enough for their ship to collect them.

1.Fiennes is going on this expedition because__________.

A.it is something he always does as a career

B.he wishes to inspire his family

C.he wants to travel with his wife and daughter

D.he hopes to improve his health

2.The underlined word in Paragraph 7 probably means “__________.”

A.warm and pleasant B.cold and harsh

C.tough and unbearable D.agreeable and relaxing

3.According to the article, Fiennes’ expedition will__________.

A.begin at an Antarctic base of Sweden

B.involve climbing and going down a high plateau

C.start and finish exactly at the two spring equinoxes

D.finish in a few weeks after the ship arrives

4.Fiennes is attempting to cross the South Pole__________.

A.on the same route as Captain Scott’s

B.by himself during the winter months

C.by ice tractor for most of the trip

D.on foot during the worst trip