Sometimeearlyinthenextcentury,-优题课

What will power your house in the future？Nuclear, wind or solar power？According to scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, it might be leaves — but artificial (人造的) ones.
Natural leaves are able to change sunlight and water into energy. It is known as photosynthesis (光合作用). Now researchers have found a way to imitate this seemingly simple process.
The artificial leaf developed by Daniel Nocera and his colleagues at MIT can be seen as a special silicon chip with catalysts (催化剂). Similar to natural leaves, it can split water into hydrogen and oxygen when put into a bucket of water. The hydrogen and oxygen gases are then stored in a fuel cell，which uses those two materials to produce electricity，located either on top of a house or beside the house.
Though the leaf is only about the shape of a poker card, scientists claimed that it is promising to be an inexpensive source of electricity in developing countries. “One can imagine villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology,” said Nocera at a conference of the American Chemical Society.
The artificial leaf is not a new idea. The first artificial leaf was invented in 1997 but was too expensive and unstable for practical use. The new leaf, by contrast, is made of cheap materials, easy to use and highly stable. In laboratory studies, Nocera showed that an artificial leaf prototype (原型) could operate continuously for at least 45 hours without a drop in activity.
The wonderful improvements come from Nocera’s recent discovery of several powerful, new and inexpensive catalysts. These catalysts make the energy transformation inside the leaf more efficient with water and sunlight. Right now, the new leaf is about 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural one. Besides, the device can run in whatever water is available; that is, it doesn’t need pure water. This is important for some countries that don’t have access to pure water.
With the goal to “make each home its own power station” and “give energy to the poor”，scientists believe that the new technology could be widely used in developing countries，especially in India and rural China.
Which of the following orders correctly shows how the artificial leaf is used to produce electricity?
a. artificial leaves split water into hydrogen and oxygen
b. the hydrogen and oxygen gases are stored in a fuel cell
c. the artificial leaves are put in water
d. the fuel cell uses hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity

A．c, a, b, d	B． c, b, a, d
C．b, c, a, d	D． c, a, d, b

The purpose of the scientists at MIT in developing the new artificial leaf is to ________.

A．build up more power stations in the world

B．provide cheaper energy for developing countries

C．offer people in developing countries access to pure water

D．gain a deeper understanding of the photosynthesis process

The main idea of this passage is ________.

A．an introduction to the history of artificial leaves

B．a mixture of water power and solar energy

C．giving energy to the poor

D．an invention copying photosynthesis

On countless mornings over the past year, I stood with my son, James, in our driveway, watching our neighbor hurry off to kindergarten. My wife and I wanted to give James the best education, but that meant we’d have to change our jobs and spend less time with our kid. I asked myself, “Would this trade-off be worth it?” When I look at the research on child development, I think it might not. Where our kids go to school might matter less than most American parents think.
Social scientists have long tried to determine why some children grow up to be successful. In a 2001 study, Greg Duncan, a professor of education at the University of California, measured the influence that the people in a child’s life have on how well the child does in school. Duncan and his team found almost no relationship between how students did on the test and whom they sat beside in class, whom they hung out with after school and who lived in their block. The only meaningful link they found was between siblings（兄弟姐妹）and twins in particular.
For a long time, scholars thought that a family’s income heavily affected how well kids did in life. But that might not be the case. When Susan Mayer at the University of Chicago looked at the relationship between family income and lifetime achievement, she ran a series of experiments to measure it, finding such outcomes weren’t caused by income. She argued that the things that make a difference are relatively inexpensive: the number of books a kid has or how often his family goes to museums.
Lareau, another scholar began one of the most in-depth observations of American parenting. He concluded that success is much more related to the amount of time parents spend with their children. He said “Many parents I interviewed are anxious about their children’s futures．But they have exaggerated（夸大）the sense of the risks involved if they don't give their children the best of everything..”
So at last, we decided to leave things as it were. More time with our kid is the best we can provide.
The first paragraph is intended to __________.

A．introduce the topic of the passage

B．confirm the result of a research

C．stress the importance of good education

D．support a research on child development

From the passage we know that most American parents _________.

A．spend a lot of time with their children

B．like to buy a variety of books for their children

C．think children's achievement largely depends on schools

D．believe their income cannot afford children's education

Who believes children's brothers and sisters may influence their academic performance?

A．Lareau．	B．Greg Duncan．
C．Susan Mayer．	D．James．

Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A．Parents' time matters to children's future．

B．School education determines children's future．

C．Family income counts to children's achievements．

D．Less education means more risks for children's success．

Nowadays women appear to have a positive image of themselves as safer drivers than men.
In a survey done for insurer MetLife, 51% of women said they drive more safely. The evidence is on their side: Men are 3.4 times more likely than women to get a ticket for careless driving and 3.1 times as likely to be punished for drunk driving. “Women are on average less aggressive and more law abiding (守法的) drivers, which leads to fewer accidents,” the report says. However, not all male drivers share the same opinion. Of the men surveyed by MetLife, 39% claimed male drivers were safer. The findings did back them upon one point: automotive knowledge. The report showed that more men are familiar with current safety equipment such as electronic stability control，which helps prevent rollover accidents.
Auto safety unavoidably matters to Money. Insurance companies focus on what classes of drivers have the lowest dollar amounts of claims, and for now, that mainly includes women. In general, women pay about 9% less for auto insurance than men. A study by the website Insweb also showed that auto insurance rates are lower for women in most states. Among individual states, women get the greatest, advantage in Wyoming (where they pay 20% less), South Dakota and Washington, D.C, where their insurance costs are 16% lower.
“More than 11,900 male drivers died in US traffic accidents in 2009，compared with just under 4,900 women drivers” according to the study. “Based on miles traveled, men died at a rate of 2.5 deaths per 100 million miles traveled, vs.1.7 deaths for women.”
According to the study，female drivers ________.

A．are more aggressive while driving

B．are more interested in auto knowledge

C．are more likely to stick to driving laws

D．are more familiar with safety equipment

Insurance companies focus on female driver clients probably because they________.

A．cause more accidents on the road

B．pay more money to the insurance companies

C．take the most part of the insurance clients

D．have the lowest amount of money on insurance claims

We can infer from the passage that________.

A．men are 3.1 times more likely to get tickets than women

B．all women in the USA pay the same for their auto insurance

C．more female drivers die every year than male drivers

D．women are generally safer drivers than the opposite gender

The writer mainly develops paragraphs by________.

A．giving examples

B．making comparisons

C．drawing a conclusion

D．presenting an argument

Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high-tech devices, while driving, walking, shopping, even sitting in toilets. When connected electronically, they are away from physical reality.
People have been influenced to become technology addicted. One survey reported that “addicted” was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to iPad and similar devices. One study found that people had a harder time resisting the allure of social media than they did for sleep, cigarettes and alcohol.
The main goal of technology companies is to get people to spend more money and time on their products, not to actually improve our quality of life. They have successfully created a cultural disease. Consumers willingly give up their freedom, money and time to catch up on the latest information, to keep pace with their peers or to appear modern.
I see people trapped in a pathological（病态的）relationship with time-sucking technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them. I call this technology servitude. I am referring to a loss of personal freedom and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices that eat up time and money.
What is a healthy use of technology devices? That is the vital question. Who is really in charge of my life? That is what people need to ask themselves if we are to have any chance of breaking up false beliefs about their use of technology. When we can live happily without using so much technology for a day or a week, then we can regain control and personal freedom, become the master of technology and discover what there is to enjoy in life free of technology. Mae West is famous for proclaiming the wisdom that “too much of a good thing is wonderful.” But it’s time to discover that it does not work for technology.
Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at Google acknowledged that “we can be swept away by our technologies.” To break the grand digital connection people must consider how life long ago could be fantastic without today’s overused technology.
The underlined word “allure” in Paragraph 2 probably means ______.

A．advantage	B．attraction
C．adaption	D．attempt

From the passage, technology companies aim to ______.

A．attract people to buy their products

B．provide the latest information

C．improve people’s quality of life

D．deal with cultural diseases

It can be inferred from this passage that people ______.

A．consider too much technology wonderful

B．have realized the harm of high-tech devices

C．can regain freedom without high-tech devices

D．may enjoy life better without overused technology

What’s the author’s attitude towards the overusing of high-tech devices?

A．Neutral.	B．Skeptical.
C．Disapproving.	D．Sympathetic.

Hello and welcome. My name is Shelley Ann Vernon and I am glad that you want to find out more about teaching English through games. Right here you will find ways to get great results in the classroom for children aged 4 to 12; ways that from my experience will bring more success and joy into the lives of the children you teach.
You’ll learn how to make your serious classes fun, how to ensure everyone gets better grades, how to help stimulate(刺激) the brighter kids while nurturing the slower ones, and how to associate fun with learning by teaching vocabulary and grammar through language games. Earn even more appreciation, love and respect from your students and their parents for your teaching.
The games presented here work for ESL ( English as a Second Language ) pupils aged 4 to 12. These games are most suitable for beginners to intermediate level ( 中级) students.
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The passage is mainly written for _____.

A．students	B．girls
C．teachers	D．doctors

Which of the following does the writer agree with?

A．Teachers should make their classes serious.

B．A good class should associate fun with learning.

C．Only smart children can learn from the games.

D．Only pupils aged 2 can make good use of the games.

If you are unsatisfied with the book, _____.

A．you can complain to a local newspaper or Shelley Ann Vernon

B．you can get half your money back and keep the material

C．you can get 25 dollars back but you have to return the product first

D．you will get your money back without returning the essential bonus material

The writer wrote the passage to _____.

A．tell teachers how to teach

B．recommend games to kids

C．persuade teachers to buy a book

D．show her students’ good performance

A．Terraforming Mars．	B．Saving the Earth．
C．Travelling to Mars．	D．A Newly-found Place．