Gauri Nanda sees a wearable computer as a handbag — one that’s built out of four-inch squares and triangles of fiber, with tiny computer chips embedded (嵌入) in it. It looks, feels and weighs like your typical leather purse.
That’s where similarities end: This bag can wirelessly keep track of your belongings and remind you, just as you’re about to leave the house, to take your wallet. It can review the weather report and suggest that you grab an umbrella. This purse can even upload your favorite songs onto your scarf.
Sure, a computing purse and scarf set may seem like the stuff of science fiction. But these devices, part of next generation of wearable computers, could become commonplace within a few years. DuPont created new super strong fibers that can conduct electricity and can be woven into ordinary-looking clothes. And the chipmaker developed chip packaging allowing wearable computers to be washed, even in the heavy-duty cycle.
As a result, these new wearable devices are different from the heavy and downright silly versions of the recent past, which often required users to be wrapped in wires and type on their stomachs. Unlike their predecessors, these new wearable computers also make economic sense. When her bag becomes commercially available in two to three years, Nanda expects it will cost around $150, which is the price of an average leather purse.
Here’s how the bag works: You place a special radio-signal-transmitting chip on to your wallet. A similar radio in your purse picks up the signal and notifies you that you’ve forgotten to take your wallet. In turn, sensors on your purse’s handles will notify the computer that you’ve picked up the purse and are ready to go.
Already, these new kinds of wearable devices are being adopted for use in markets like auto repair, emergency services, medical monitoring — and even, increasingly, for consumers at large. Indeed, more people will want to cross that bridge in the coming years — making for a booming market for wearable computers that don’t like something out of science fiction.Which of the following describes a wearable computer?
| A．It can be washed in a washing machine. |
| B．It is much heavier than a leather purse. |
| C．It can download songs from the Internet. |
| D．It is made of clothes conducting electricity. |
According to the passage, these new wearable computers ________________________.
| A．require users to operate on the stomach |
| B．pick up the signals through wires and chip |
| C．are being applied in some different areas now |
| D．are smarter but more expensive than the old ones |
What does the underlined sentence in the last paragraph mean?
| A．These new wearable computers have become fashionable. |
| B．People would like to learn more about these new computers. |
| C．These new wearable computers promise to sell well in the future. |
| D．The idea of these purse-like computers comes from science fiction. |
The purpose of the passage is ________________________________________.
| A．to introduce a new kind of computer | B．to explain the function of computers |
| C．to compare different types of computers | D．to show how high technology affects our life |
You feel generally depressed and unable to concentrate. Your pattern of daily activity may change：you find yourself awake and active in the middle of the night；you sleep late into the day. You stay in your room and have little contact with people except with those who speak your language. In your mind，you criticize the people around you；You are constantly comparing between life here and the perfect life back home. Above a11, you are homesick almost all the time.
If you ever find yourself behaving in these ways，you are probably suffering from culture shock. Culture shock is a psychological condition that sometimes has physical effects. It affects people who have moved away from an environment where they know how to live into a new environment where much is unfamiliar to them-the food，the weather, the language，and especially the unwritten rules for social behavior.
Culture shock is caused. therefore，by a lack of familiarity with the system of rules that the new society uses for everyday living. Language is an obvious example of one type of these rules. If your language is limited，even the simplest task can suddenly become difficult for you. However, knowledge of the language doesn’t make you free from the effects of culture shock as many Britons in the United States and many Americans in Britain will experience. Most people are unaware that each culture has its own rules for social behavior；they certainly think that polite， civilized people behave the same way worldwide. This mistaken belief will cause you to behave and judge the behavior of others according to the rules you learned as a member of your own culture. If the rules are different, then people will misunderstand your behavior, and you will misunderstand theirs.
How can you deal with culture shock? First, you need to realize that every newcomer suffers from some culture shock. You’re not the only case. Second，remember that culture shock can be cured. The process of recovery will start as you begin to become used to the new culture. Of course learning the language will help remove the obstacles to communication and will ease the job of making Mends with people. Recognizing and learning the new cultural rules of behavior, however, may be just as important. You’ll still have emotional reactions to unfamiliar situations but you’11 find yourself making jokes about them rather than condemning the entire society as “stupid.” The jokes are a good sign：they show that you are recovering.What’s the main idea of the first paragraph?
| A．the causes of culture shock |
| B．some signs of culture shock |
| C．the cure for culture shock |
| D．an explanation of culture shock |
What does the underlined word obstacles mean?
| A．things that make a task easy |
| B．things that make at ask enjoyable |
| C．things that make a task difficult |
| D．things that make at ask funny |
What can be concluded when you find yourself making jokes about new culture?
| A．You are about to recover from culture shock. |
| B．You have completely got rid of culture shock. |
| C．You never suffered from culture shock before. |
| D．You’re in culture shock for many years. |
Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
| A．The passage suggests that culture shock makes you miss your family badly. |
| B．A good knowledge of the language will prevent you suffering from culture shock. |
| C．In the writer’s opinion，the social rules for polite，civilized behavior are international. |
| D．If you have a perfect knowledge of their language, you will never be misunderstood. |
Shopping is not as simple as you think! There are all sorts of tricks at play each time we reach out for that particular brand of product on the shelf.
Coloring, for example, varies according to what the producers are trying to sell. Health foods are packages in greens, yellows or browns because we think of these as healthy colors. Ice cream packets are often blue and expensive foods, like chocolates, are gold and silver.
When some kind of pain killer was brought out recently, researchers found that the colors turned the customers off because they made the product look weak and ineffective. Eventually, it came on the market in a dark blue and white package because we think of it as safe, and white as calm.
The size of a product can attract a shopper. But quite often a bottle doesn’t contain as much as it appears to.
It is believed that the better-known companies spend, on average, 70 percent of the total cost of the product itself on packaging.
The most successful producers know that it’s not enough to have a good product. The founder of Pears soap, who for 25 years has used pretty little girls to promote their goods, came to the conclusion: “Any fool can make soap, but it takes a genius to sell it.”Which of the following may trick a shopper into buying a product according to the text?
| A．The cost of its package. |
| B．The price of the product. |
| C．The color of its package. |
| D．The brand name of the product. |
The underlined part in paragraph 3 means that the colors ________.
| A．attracted the customers strongly |
| B．had weak effect on the customers |
| C．tricked the customers into shopping |
| D．caused the customers to lose interest |
Which of the following would be the best title for this text?
| A．Choice of Good Products |
| B．Disadvantages of Products |
| C．Effect of Packaging on Shopping |
| D．Brand Names and Shopping Tricks |
Not everyone goes to university after high school graduation. Some work, others join the army and an increasing number worldwide are taking a “gap year” to travel or do community service in their own countries or abroad. They are studying sharks off the Australian coast, building schools in Mexico and learning Spanish or Italian.
The concept of a gap year may not be new, but the recent surge (涌现) of interest certainly is. Some students are putting off admissions. Others, who don’t get into the college of their choice, are taking a year to explore new frontiers before reapplying.
Students are choosing to take a breather; they are thinking. They are not sure what they are going to do. They are going and exploring some of their interests. They are getting experience they can take to the school they finally go to.
It is an idea actively encouraged by colleges. Princeton University has just launched a “bridge year” program that will send 10 percent of its incoming class to do volunteer work abroad, starting in 2009. And the Harvard has spent the last 30 years urging incoming students to take a gap year.
“Many speak of their year away as a ‘life-changing’ experience or a ‘turning point’” says Harvard admissions director Marlin Lewis. “Many come to college with new opinions about their academic plans, their extracurricular interests and the career possibilities they observed in their year away.”The reasons why some take a gap year are the following EXCEPT that ________.
| A．they hate studying |
| B．they don’t know what to do |
| C．they want to get experience |
| D．they want to know their real interests |
A student won’t ________ in a gap year.
| A．travel | B．join the army |
| C．do community service | D．learn a foreign language |
After a gap year, one would probably _________.
| A．take another year off |
| B．earn a lot of money |
| C．be refused by his college |
| D．have new ideas about their future career |
From the passage we know that ________.
| A．more and more students will take a gap year |
| B．fewer and fewer colleges will encourage his students to take a gap year |
| C．the gap year can only give one some experience about society |
| D．nobody will change his own interests after the gap year |
American magician David Blaine left the glass box in which he had lived for 44 days without food on October 19, 2003. Hundreds of people came to watch the end of his starvation experiment, which has become one of London’s main tourist attractions.
Looking thinner and darker, 30-year-old Blaine was taken out of his box over the River Thames and immediately went to hospital. He was then slowly reintroduced to food, a process doctors say could be life threatening. He had been drinking only water since September 5.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Blaine first became known as a street magician in the early 1990s. He soon found himself doing magic tricks in bars for the likes of American actor Leonardo DiCaprio and his super model friends.
Over the last decade Blaine has become famous with a combination of breathtaking magic and clever tricks aimed at getting a lot of attention. In 1999, he was buried in a coffin (棺材) for one week and, in 2000, he spent 62 hours in a giant block of ice. Last year he stood on top of a 25-meter pillar (柱子) in the center of New York for 35 hours before jumping into a pile of boxes.
“I think a lot of people are unable to accept that they’re able to do what they can do,” he said. “They don’t realize we can survive. The human being is an amazing creation.”
But he seems to have suffered from spending so long in the glass box. He said that at times he was unable to see, had serious back pains and lost his sense of taste.It is for David Blaine to eat food after such a long starvation.
| A．pleasant | B．delicious | C．dangerous | D．important |
Having spent such a long time in the glass box, he suffered the following EXCEPT that .
| A．he had become blind | B．he had serious back pains |
| C．he lost his sense of taste | D．he was in weak health |
Which of the following can best describe David Blaine?
| A．Serious. | B．Adventurous. | C．Smart. | D．Crazy. |
Which of the following is NOT true about David Blaine?
| A．Blaine immediately went to hospital after he was taken out of his box. |
| B．Blaine was born and brought up in England. |
| C．In Blaine’s opinion, people can create a wonder. |
| D．Blaine didn’t have any food for 44 days. |
阅读短文，并按照题目要求用英语回答问题。
Born in 1949, Diana Nyad took an early interest in swimming as a sport and was a Florida State High School swimming champion. Like many young athletes, she had Olympic dreams, but a serious illness kept her from competing in the Games. The disappointment didn’t stop her from going forward. Instead, she became interested in marathon swimming. A brilliant athlete, she was well-conditioned for spending long periods of time in the water. As a long-distance swimmer, she would compete against herself and the obstacles presented by distance, danger, cold, and exhaustion.
For ten years Nyad devoted herself to becoming one of the world’s best long-distance swimmers. In 1970, she swam a ten-mile marathon in Lake Ontario, setting the women’s record for the course. In 1972 she set another record by swimming 102.5 miles from an island in the Bahamas to the coast of Florida. Then she broke a third record when swimming around Manhattan Island in 1975.
Nyad attempted to swim the distance between Florida and Cuba in 1978. Though the span of water is less than 100 miles wide, it is rough and dangerous. After battling the water for two days, she had to give for the sake of her own health and safety. Even so, she impressed the world with her courage and strong desire to succeed. For Nyad her strength of purpose was just as important as reading Cuba. That is how she defined success. It did not matter that her swim came up short; she believed she had touched the other shore.
When Nyad ended her career as a swimmer, she continued to try new things---travelling the world as a reporter, writing books and giving public speeches about her life. Diana Nyad works to inspire others, just as she did when she swam the waters of the world.What prevented Nyad from taking part in the Olympic Games? (No more than 5 words)
__________________________________________________________________________What does the underlined word “obstacles” mean? (1 word)
___________________________________________________________________________What achievement did Nyad make in 1970? (No more than 10 words.)
________________________________________________________________________________Why did Nyad believe that she had touched the other shore? (No more than 10 words)
___________________________________________________________________________Please explain how you are inspired by Nyad. (No more than 20 words)
_______________________________________________________________________________