Stephen William Hawking was born on January 8th, 1942 in Oxford, England. His parents’ house was in North London, but during the Second World War Oxford was considered a safer place to have babies. When he was eight, his family moved to St Albans. At eleven Stephen went to St. Albans School, and then on to University College, Oxford, his father’s old college. Stephen wanted to do math, although his father would have preferred medicine. Math was not available at University College, so he did physics instead.
Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology (宇宙论). After gaining his Ph.D. （哲学博士）he became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973, Stephen came to the Department of Applied Math and Theoretical Physics (理论物理), and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of math.
Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which rule the universe. With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. These results show it was necessary to unify（统一）General Relativity with Quantum Theory （量子论）. One result of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but should give off radiation and disappear in the end.
59. Which of the following is NOT suitable for describing Stephen Hawking?
A. He once studied at the same college that his father studied at.
B. At one time he did research in Cosmology in Oxford.
C. He preferred math to medicine at college.
D. He contributed to the unification of General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory.
60. The underlined word “available” in the first paragraph probably means “________”.
A. able to be had B. allowed to study
C. easy to understand D. limited to learn
61. Why did Stephen Hawking’s parents move to Oxford from North London?
A. Because they liked it better than North London.
B. Because there was a world-famous university there.
C. Because they were tired of living in North London.
D. Because it was safer to give birth to a baby in Oxford.
62. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
A. Einstein and Stephen Hawking
B. Big Bang, a great theory
C. Stephen Hawking, a great British scientist
D. The unification of two theories
