f cars had wings，they could fly and that just might happen, beginning in 2011.The
company Terrafugia, based in Woburn, Massachusetts, says it plans to deliver its car-plane, the Transition, to customers by the end of 2011.
“It’s the next‘wow’vehicle，”said Terrafugia vice president Richard Gersh.“Anybody can buy a Ferrari, but as we say, Ferraris don’t fly.”
The car plane has wings that unfold for flying—a process the company says takes one minute—and fold back up for driving.A runway is still required to take off and land.
The Transition is being marketed more as a plane that drives than a car that flies, although it is both.The company has been working with FAA to meet aircraft regulations, and with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to meet vehicle safety regulations.
The company is aiming to sell the Transition to private pilots as a more convenient and cheaper way to fly.They say it saves you the trouble from trying to find another mode of transportation to get to and from airports: You drive the car to the airport and then you’re good to go.When you land, you fold up the wings and hit the road.There are no expensive parking fees because you don’t have to store it at an airport—you park it in the garage at home.
The car-plane is designed to fly primarily under 10,000 feet.It has a maximum takeoff weight of 1,4
30 pounds, including fuel and passengers.Terrafugia says the Transition reduces the potential for an accident by allowing pilots to drive under bad weather instead of flying i
nto marginal(临界)conditions.
The Transition’s price tag: $194,000, But there may be additional charges for options like a radio, transponder or GPS.Another option is a full-plane parachute.
“If you get into a very awful situation, it is the necessary safety option,”Gersh said.
So far,the company has more than 70 orders with deposits.“We’re working very closely with them, but there are still some remaining steps,”Brown said.We can learn fro
m the first paragraph that .
| A．car-planes will be popular in 2011 |
| B．people might drive a car-plane in 2011 |
| C．both Transition and Ferrari can take off and land |
| D．Richard Gersh is the vice president of Massachusetts |
lt takes the car-plane one minute to .
| A．fold and unfold its wings | B．unfold wings for flying |
| C．land in the airport | D．meet flying safety regulations |
.According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?
A.The car-plane needs a runway to take off and land.
B.To mcet aircraft regulations, the company has been working with FAA.
C.The car-plane may fly as high as normal planes.
D.People can park the car-plane in the garage at their home..The underlined word“it”in the last but one paragraph refers to .
| A．the radio | B．the transponder |
| C．the GPS | D．the full-plane parachute |
What’s the best title for the passage?
| A．Cars With Wings May Be Just Around The Corner. |
| B．Which to Choose: A Ferraris or a Car Plane? |
| C．A more Convenient and Cheaper Way to Fly. |
| D．Cars With Wings Can Fly as Fast as Planes. |
It is men’s nature to live together in families and tribes(部落), and cities and nations, and therefore men have learned to prize those qualities in each other which make social life the happiest and best.
Of these qualities one of the most important is sympathy－fellow-feeling. If a man had no fellow-feeling, we should call him “inhuman”; he would be no true man. We think so much of this quality that we call a kind man “human”－that is, man-like in his conduct, first to other men, and afterwards to all living things.
If you are cruel to animals, you are not likely to be kind or thoughtfull to men; and if you are thoughtful towards men, you are not likely to be cruel and thoughtful towards animals. This is why the wise man of old wrote, “The merciful man is merciful to his beast.”
What a pleasure it is also to be loved by our pets or domestic animals; and to feel that we are caring for them and are deserving of their love; or to watch the ways of wild creatures, and gradually to make friends with them!
Treating animals kindly does not mean that we must never inflict any pain on them. We ourselves are trained by pains as well as by pleasures; so too, punishment is sometimes needed to train our dogs and horses to obey us. We endure pains at the hands of the surgeon, to cure some wound or to heal some disease; so too, animals must submit to being doctored.
We send out our bravest men to face wounds, sickness and death, for the good of the nation; so too, we let our horses share the risk of battle. For similar reasons, we cannot hesitate to destroy dangerous creatures like wolves and show senseless ferocity(残忍). It is no excuse to say that these animals deserve to be treated cruelly on account of their own cruelty. They are not really cruel, for they tear and kill not from love of unkindness, but because they must do so in order to live.One of the most important qualities of men is fellow-feeling because .
| A．you are likely to be cruel and thoughtful without it |
| B．a man would be inhuman without it |
| C．men can’t bear any pain on themselves and animals |
| D．only sympathy makes a man man-like in his conduct |
The author would probably agree with the following EXCEPT that .
| A．we must never force any pain on animals |
| B．some people have to kill some animals in order to live |
| C．it is human for a doctor to cut off some part from the animals |
| D．wise men are not only good to men but also to animals |
What do you think is the title of the passage?
| A．Loving your pet. | B．Fellow-feeling. |
| C．Making friends with animals. | D．Kindness to animals. |
Which of the following is inhuman according to the writer?
| A．To treat animals cruelly because they are cruel. |
| B．To train animals. |
| C．To destroy some of the dangerous animals. |
| D．To make animals submit to being doctored. |
The underlined word “inflict” here means .
| A．make sb/sth suffer | B．forbid |
| C．punish | D．avoid |
Do American children still learn handwriting in school? In the age of the keyboard, some people seem to think handwriting lessons are on the way out. 90% of teachers say they are required to teach handwriting.But studies have yet to answer the question of how well they are teaching it. One study published this year found that about three out of every four teachers say they are not prepared to teach handwriting. Some teachers are teaching handwriting by providing instruction for 10 15 minutes a day, and then other teachers who basically teach it for 60 to 70 minutes a day — which really for handwriting is pretty much.
Many adults remember learning that way — by copying letters over and over again. Today’ s thinking is that short periods of practice are better. Many experts also think handwriting should not be taught by itself.Instead, they say it should be used as a way to get students to express ideas. After all, that is why we write.
Handwriting involves two skills. One is legibility,_which means forming the letters so they can be read. The other is fluency — writing without having to think about it. Fluency continues to develop up until high school.
But not everyone masters these skills. Teachers commonly report that about onefourth of their kids have poor handwriting. Some people might think handwriting is not important any more because of computers and voice recognition programs.
But Steve Graham at Vanderbilt says word processing is rarely done in elementary school, especially in the early years. American children traditionally first learn to print, and then to write in cursive, which connects the letters. But guess what we learned from a spokeswoman for the College Board, which administers the SAT college admission test. More than 75 percent of students choose to print their essay on the test rather than write in cursive.We can learn ________ from Paragraph 1.
| A．teaching handwriting is a basic requirement in teaching job |
| B．most teachers prefer to teach handwriting |
| C．teachers spend little time in teaching handwriting |
| D．a keyboard has taken the place of the handwriting entirely |
Which of the following is WRONG for traditional handwriting in the USA?
| A．The students are taught by practicing a long period. |
| B．The letters are repeated many times. |
| C．Handwriting includes two skills. |
| D．To write in cursive is taught first. |
The underlined word “legibility” in Paragraph 3 means ________.
| A．easy to read | B．complex | C．unexpected | D．unreadable |
The best title for the passage is ________.
| A．How to improve handwriting in school |
| B．Right or wrong: the death of handwriting |
| C．Handwriting involves two skills |
| D．Handwriting lessons are on the way out |
The author’ s attitude towards whether still to learn handwriting in school is________.
| A．negative | B．objective | C．critical | D．optimistic |
Can you believe your eyes? A recent experiment suggests that the answer to that question may depend on your age.
Martin Doherty, a psychologist at the University of Stirling in Scotland, led the team of scientists. In this experiment, Doherty and his team tested the perception(观察力) of some people, using pictures of some orange circles. The researchers showed the same pictures to two groups of people. The first group included 151 children aged 4 to 10, and the second group included 24 adults aged 18 to 25.
The first group of pictures showed two circles alone on a white background. One of the circles was larger than the other, and these people were asked to identify the larger one. Four-year-olds identified the correct circle 79 percent of the time. Adults identified the correct circle 95 percent of the time.
Next, both groups were shown a picture where the orange circles, again of different sizes, were surrounded by gray circles. Here’s where the trick lies in. In some of the pictures, the smaller orange circle was surrounded by even smaller gray circles — making the orange circle appear larger than the other orange circle, which was the real larger one. And the larger orange circle was surrounded by even bigger gray circles — so it appeared to be smaller than the real smaller orange circle.
When young children aged 4 to 6 looked at these tricky pictures, they weren’t fooled—they were still able to find the bigger circle with roughly the same accuracy as before. Older children and adults, on the other hand, did not do as well. Older children often identified the smaller circle as the larger one, and adults got it wrong most of the time.
As children get older, Doherty said, their brains may develop the ability to identify visual context. In other words, they will begin to process the whole picture at once: the tricky gray circles, as well as the orange circle in the middle. As a result, they’re more likely to fall for this kind of visual trick.Doherty and his team of scientists did an experiment to evaluate .
| A．children’s and adults’ eye-sight |
| B．people’s ability to see accurately |
| C．children’s and adults’ brains |
| D．the influence of people’s age |
When asked to find the larger circle，________.
| A．children at 6 got it wrong 79 % of the time with no gray ones around |
| B．only adults over 18 got it right 95% of the time with gray ones around |
| C．children at 4 got it right about 79 % of the time with gray ones around |
| D．adults got it right most of the time with gray ones around |
According to the passage, we can know that________.
| A．a smaller orange circle appears bigger on a white background |
| B．an orange circle appears bigger than a gray one of the same size |
| C．a circle surrounded by other circles looks bigger than its real size |
| D．a circle surrounded by bigger ones looks smaller than its real size |
Visual context may work when children get older than________.
| A．4 | B．6 | C．10 | D．18 |
Why are younger children not fooled?
| A．Because they are smarter than older children and adults. |
| B．Because older people are influenced by their experience. |
| C．Because people’s eyes become weaker as they grow older. |
| D．Because their brain can hardly notice related things together. |
Can you imagine traveling to work in a one – man submarine? Some scientists believe that some day one – man submarines will be as many as automobiles are today．A famous French driver says, “One day soon, men will walk on the ocean floor as they do on the street!” Perhaps during your lifetime people will travel, and live in the sea．
If human beings want to live in the ocean, many human problems will need to be studied first.
Some of these problems, similar to those of living in outer space, are pressure, lack of oxygen and weightlessness. Many questions are still unanswered．For example, can our blood make itself fit for underwater surroundings? What will happen to our muscle if we live in the water very long? Scientists are looking for answers．
Perhaps in the future man will live in the sea, away from the crowded and noisy cities on land．Then sea has plenty of space, not only for floating living buildings and parks, but also for storing supplies and for underwater travel．
Some scientists believe that ocean living will benefit man in more than physical ways. In the freedom and beauty of the deep sea, man may find new sources of joy．What can we do if we live in the ocean? ()
| A．We can have plenty of oxygen． |
| B．We can be fit to live in the water very well． |
| C．We needn’t worry about things like weightlessness． |
| D．We can travel and work in the sea． |
Why do some people hope to leave cities to live in the sea? Because_____． ()
| A．people think they can live crowdedly in the sea |
| B．people wish to go the quiet seafloor to travel for several days |
| C．people want to break away from the crowded and noisy cities where they live now |
| D．only in this way can people get rid of noise pollution |
In what ways could ocean living be helpful for man? ( )
| A．People can swim freely as much as possible． |
| B．People can be interested in the new pleasure there isn’t anywhere else． |
| C．The sea can supply people with enough foods and other things, so people needn’t work． |
| D．People can go boating and go to the park as often as possible． |
Which of the following is the similar problem as that of living in outer space? ( )
| A．We are short of oxygen． |
| B．We are not familiar with the underwater surrounding． |
| C．We may die of weightlessness． |
| D．We can finds new joys． |
Which of the following statements is true according to the passage? ( )
| A．The scientists have not solved the problem of weightlessness underwater． |
| B．The scientists have solved the problem of weightlessness when man live in space． |
| C．Some scientists believe that ocean living will benefit man in no more than physical ways． |
| D．Sea has plenty of space only for floating living buildings and parks． |
English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three quarters of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary—perhaps as many as two million words.
However, let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no eggs in an eggplant, neither pine nor apple in a pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. Sweet-meats are candy, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes ( 探讨它的矛盾)， we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public bathrooms have no baths in them.
And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural(复数形式) of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be teeth? One goose, two geese—so one moose, two meese?
How can a slim chance and a flat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects( 反映) the creativity of human beings. That’ why, when stars are invisible. And why , when I wind up my watch, I start it; but when I wind up this essay, I end it.According to the passage ______.
| A．sweet-meats and sweetbreads are different things |
| B．there should be an egg in an eggplant |
| C．pineapples are the apples on the pine tree |
| D．boxing rings should be round |
Which of the following is the correct plural?
| A．Beeth | B．Greese | C．Meese | D．Tooth |
Which of the following includes two items which have the similar meaning?
| A．A wise man and a wise guy | B．Overlook and oversee |
| C．Quite a lot and quite a few. | D．Hot as hell and cold as hell. |
The underlined words “wind up” in the last paragraph probably mean “___”.
| A．blow | B．roll up | C．get hurt | D．finish |
Through the many paradoxes in the English language, the writer wants to show that human beings are _______.
| A．clever | B．crazy | C．lazy | D．dull |