Since the 1970s, scientists have been searching for ways to link the brain with computers. Brain-computer interface(BCI) technology could help people with disabilities send commands to machines.
Recently, two researchers, Jose Millan and Michele Tavella from the Federal Polytechnic school in Lausanne, Switzerland, demonstrated（展示）a small robotic wheelchair directed by a person’s thoughts.
In the laboratory, Tavella operated the wheelchair just by thinking about moving his left or right hand. He could even talk as he watched the vehicle and guided it with his thoughts.
“our brain has billions of nerve ceils. These send signals through the spinal cord（脊髓）to the muscles to give us the ability to move. But spinal cord injuries or other conditions can prevent these weak electrical signals from reaching the muscles,” Tavella says. “Our system allows disabled people to communicate with external world and also to control devices.”
The researchers designed a special cap for the user. This head cover picks up the signals from the scalp(头皮) and sends them to a computer. The computer interprets the signals and commands the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair also has two cameras that identify objects in its path. They help the computer react to commands from the brain.
Prof. Millan, the team leader, says scientists keep improving the computer software that interprets brain signals and turns them into simple commands. “The practical possibilities that BCI technology offers to disabled people can be grouped in two categories: communication, and controlling devices. One example is this wheelchair.”
He says his team has set two goals. One is testing with real patients, so as to prove that this is a technology they can benefit from. And the other is to make sure that they can use the technology over long periods of time.BCI is a technology that can______.
| A．help to update computer systems | B．link the human brain with computers |
| C．help the disabled to recover | D．control a person's thoughts |
How did Tavella operate the wheelchair in the laboratory?
| A．By controlling his muscles. | B．By talking to the machine |
| C．By moving his hand. | D．By using his mind. |
Which of the following shows the path of the signals described in Paragraph 5?
| A．scalp→computer→cap→wheelchair | B．computer→cap→scalp→wheelchair |
| C．scalp→cap→computer→wheelchair | D．cap→computer→scalp→wheelchair |
The team will test with real patients to _____ .
| A．make profits from them | B．prove the technology useful to them |
| C．make them live longer | D．learn about their physical condition |
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
| A．Switzerland, the BCI Research Center |
| B．New Findings About How the Human Brain Works |
| C．BCI Could Mean More Freedom for the Disabled |
| D．Robotic Vehicles Could Help to Cure Brain Injuries |
Environment Awareness Week
Regal Convention Center, Halls 1-4
24-30 March 2011 10:00 am- 9:00 pm
Free admission for all!
Save the environment, save our future
Our environment needs help. With the participation of more than 50 organization, Environment Awareness Week is the biggest public education event dedicated to environmental protection and conversation. Don't miss it! Come and know more about:
The Threats to Earth(Hall 1)
What is global warming? How serious is pollution? Learn about different environmental problems from our university students. Protect our environment!
The Search for Renewable Energy(Hall 2)
Can we get electricity from mind, solar energy, waves, rivers and underground heat? Get the answers from Solar Ace, Teflou, TouchWind Resources and other participants.
The Quest for Freshwater (Hall 3)
Is the shortage of freshwater worsening? What are Singapore's solutions for treating wastewater? Hear from Flow Technologies, HydroMax Solutions and other participants.
The 3 Rs to Save Earth(Hall 4)
How can we REDUCE,REUSE and RECYCLE to cut down household wastes? Find out from the Global Gaia work, Green Earth Foundation and other participants.
| For more information, please call Mr. Philip Koh at 6553 1188, send an email to Mrs Daisy Soh at daisy-soh@ief.org or visit the event's web site at http://www.ief.org/eaw. |
The main aim of Environment Awareness Week is to _____.
| A．educate the public on protecting the environment |
| B．discuss global warming and other environmental problems |
| C．explain ways for producing freshwater to save the environment |
| D．learn about renewable energy sources that protect the environment |
The organizer of the event is _____.
| A．Global Gaia Network |
| B．Clean Energy Agency |
| C．Green Earth Foundation |
| D．International Environment Fund |
If you are interested in renewable energy sources, you should go to _____.
| A．Hall 1 |
| B．Hall 2 |
| C．Hall 3 |
| D．Hall 4 |
The “3 Rs”stand for_____.
| A．Read, Realize and Remember |
| B．Reduce, Reuse and Recycle |
| C．Green Earth Foundation |
| D．Global Gaia Network |
Which of the following statements is NOT true of the event?
| A．It will last a week and the halls will be open 11 hours a day. |
| B．You can send an email to Mrs. Daisy Soh for more information. |
| C．Each hall charges the same amount of money as the other. |
| D．Lectures in Hall 1 will be given by university students. |
LONDON (Reuters) — Quiet please — Britain’ s Queen Elizabeth is preparing to have her swans counted. Buckingham Palace has announced that the annual Swan Upping, a tradition dating back to the 12th century which involves a census of the swan population on the River Thames, will be conducted by the Queen’ s official Swan Marker from July 20—24.
“With the assistance of the Queen’s Swan Warden, Professor Christopher Perrins of the University of Oxford, the swans and young cygnets (小天鹅) are also assessed for any signs of injury or disease，” Buckingham Palace said in announcing the count.
The process involves the Swan Marker, David Barber, rowing up the Thames for five days with the Swan Warden in traditional skiffs while wearing special scarlet uniforms and counting, weighing and measuring swans and cygnets.
It may seem eccentric, but it is very important to the Queen, According to custom, Britain’ s sovereign owns all unmarked, mute swans in open water, but the Queen now exercises the right only on stretches of the Thames and its nearby tributaries.
In medieval times, the Swan Marker would not only travel up the river counting the swans, but would catch as many as possible as they were soughtafter for banquets and feasts.
This year, the Swan Marker and the Swan Warden are particularly keen to discover how much damage is being caused to swans and cygnets by attacks from dogs and from discarded fishing tackle (渔具)．
It is also an important year because Queen Elizabeth has decided to join her team of Swan Uppers for part of the census. She will follow them up the river and visit a local school project on the whole subject of swans, cygnets and the Thames.
“Education and conservation are essential to the role of Swan Upping and the involvement of school children is always a rewarding experience，” Buckingham Palace said. In medieval times，________.
| A．swans were better protected than now |
| B．a lot of swans were killed by dogs |
| C．swans were a delicious dish on royal banquets |
| D．common people could catch the swans |
We can infer from the passage that the process of counting the swans ________.
| A．remains almost unchanged in the past years |
| B．involves a lot of royal members |
| C．sometimes lasts longer than before |
| D．is always guarded by special soldiers |
This year, the Swan Marker and the Swan Warden mainly want to find out________.
| A．the exact number of swans and cygnets |
| B．how a local school project is going on |
| C．how much damage the swans and cygnets suffer |
| D．how education and conservation are carried out along the Thames |
Which of the following is the main idea of the passage?
A. Britain’ s Queen is concerned about swans.
B. Britain’ s Queen orders a count of swans.
C. An old tradition in Buckingham Palace.
D. Queen Elizabeth will count swans herself.
5．The underlined word “tributaries” can be best replaced by ________. A. districts
B. banks
C. trees
D. branches
Electric cars are dirty. In fact, not only are they dirty, they might even be more dirty than their gasoline-powered cousins.
People in California love to talk about “zero-emissions vehicles,” but people in California seem to be clueless about where electricity comes from. Power plants most all use fire to make it. Aside from the few folks who have their roofs covered with solar cells, we get our electricity from generators. Generators are fueled by something — usually coal, oil, but also by heat generated in nuclear power plants. There are a few wind farms and geothermal plants as well, but by far we get electricity mainly by burning something.
In other words, those “zero-emissions” cars are likely coal-burning cars. It's just the coal is burned somewhere else so it looks clean. It is not. It’s as if the California Greens are covering their eyes — “If I can’t see it, it’s not happening.” Gasoline is an incredibly efficient way to power a vehicle; a gallon of gas has a lot of energy in it. But when you take that gas (or another fuel) and first use it to make electricity, you waste a nice part of that energy, mostly in the form of wasted heat — at the generator, through the transmission lines, etc.
A gallon of gas may propel your car 25 miles. But the electricity you get from that gallon of gas won't get you nearly as far — so electric cars burn more fuel than gas-powered ones. If our electricity came mostly from nukes, or geothermal, or hydro, or solar, or wind, then an electric car truly would be clean. But for political, technical, and economic reasons, we don’t use much of those energy sources.
In addition, electric cars’ batteries which are poisonous for a long time will eventually end up in a landfill. And finally, when cars are the polluters, the pollution is spread across all the roads. When it’s a power plant, though, all the junk is in one place. Nature is very good at cleaning up when things are not too concentrated, but it takes a lot longer when all the garbage is in one spot. What does the underlined word“clueless” mean in paragraph 2?
| A．The California Greens are covering their eyes. |
| B．People in California love to talk about zero-emissions vehicles |
| C．People in California love to have their roofs covered with solar cells |
| D．People there have no idea that so far electricity mainly comes from burning coal, oil, etc. |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Electric cars are not clean at all. |
| B．Electric cars are better than gasonline-powered ones. |
| C．People cast doubts on electric cars’batteries. |
| D．Gasonline is an efficient way to power a vehicle. |
The electricity we get from a gallon of gas may make our car run __________.
| A．not less than 25 miles. |
| B．more than 25 miles. |
| C．no less than 25 miles. |
| D．not more than 25 miles. |
According to the passage, electric cars _________.
| A．do not burn fuel and more environmental. |
| B．are toxic and it is difficult for nature to clean it up when their batteries are buried in one spot. |
| C．are very good at cleaning up when things are not too concentrated |
| D．are poisonous for a long time and will eventually end up in a landfill |
It can be inferred from the passage that __________.
| A．Being green is good and should be encouraged in communications |
| B．Electric cars are not clean in that we get electricity mainly by burning something. |
| C．Zero-emissions vehicles should be chosen to protect our environment. |
| D．Electric cars are now the dominant vehicle compared with gasoline-powered cousins. |
After spending a year in Brazil on a student exchange program, her mother recalled, Marie Colvin returned home to find that her classmates had narrowed down their college choices. “Everyone else was already admitted to college,” her mother, Rosemarie Colvin, said from the family home. “So she took our car and drove up to Yale and said, ‘You have to let me in.’”
Impressed—she was a National Merit(全国英才) finalist who had picked up Portuguese in Brazil—Yaledid, admitting her to the class of 1978, where she started writing for The Yale Daily News “and decided to be a journalist,” her mother said.
On Wednesday, Marie Colvin, 56, an experienced journalist for The Sunday Times of London, was killed as Syrian forces shelled the city of Homs. She was working in a temporary media center that was destroyed in the attack.
“She was supposed to leave Syria on Wednesday”, Ms. Colvin said. “Her editor told me he called her yesterday and said it was getting too dangerous and they wanted to take her out. She said she was doing a story and she wanted to finish it. ”
Ms. Colvin said it was pointless to try to prevent her daughter from going to conflict zones. “If you knew my daughter,” she said, “it would have been such a waste of words. She was determined, she was enthusiastic about what she did, it was her life. There was no saying ‘Don’t do this.’ This is who she was, absolutely who she was and what she believed in: cover the story, not just have pictures of it, but bring it to life in the deepest way you could.” So it was not a surprise when she took an interest in journalism, her mother said. From the underlined sentence in Paragraph 1 we can infer that_______.
| A．Yale University was her last choice |
| B．Yale must keep its promise to Marie |
| C．Marie Colvin was confident of herself |
| D．Marie Colvin was good at persuading |
Marie Colvin’s story suggests some of the best qualities of being a journalist are_______.
| A．patience and confidence |
| B．honesty and curiosity |
| C．flexibility and creativity |
| D．determination and courage |
Which of the following is the correct order to describe Marie Colvin’s life?
a. She was doing a story in Syria and got killed.
b. She was admitted to Yale University.
c. She studied in Brazil as an exchange student.
d. She was hired by The Sunday Times of London.
e. She began to take an interest in journalism.
| A．d→e→c→a→b |
| B．c→b→e→d→a |
| C．e→d→c→b→a |
| D．b→c→d→e→a |
From the last paragraph we can know that Ms. Colvin ________.
A. knows her daughter very well
B. cares little about her daughter
C. dislikes the choice of her daughter
D. doesn’t fully appreciate her daughter
5. What can be the best title of the text?
A．Covering Stories in a Dangerous Conflict Area
B．Applying for Top Universities, a Successful Case
C．Recalling Her Daughter, a Journalist Killed in Syria
D．Choosing Lifelong Careers Based on Your Own Interest
life comes in a package. this package includes happiness and sorrow, failure and success, hope and despair. life is a learning process. experiences in life teach us new lessons and make us a better person. with each passing day we learn to handle various situations.
love
love plays a pivotal role on out life. love makes you feel wanted. without love a person could go hayward and also become cruel and ferocious. in the early stage of our life, our parents are the ones who shower us with unconditional love and care, they teach us about what is right and wrong, good and bad. but we always tend to take this for granted. it is only after marriage and having kids that a person understands and becomes sensitive to others feelings. kids make a person responsible and mature and help us to understand life better.
happiness and sorrow
materialistic happiness is short-lived, but happiness achieved by bringing a smile on others face gives a certain level of fulfillment. peace of mind is the main link to happiness. no mind is happy without peace. we realize the true worth of happiness when we are in sorrow. sorrow is basically due to death of a loved one, failure and despair. but these things are temporary and pass away.
failure and success
failure is the path to success. it helps us to touch the sky, teaches us to survive and shows us a specific way. success brings in money, fame, pride and self-respect. here it becomes very important to keep our head on out shoulder. the only way to show our gratitude to god for bestowing success on us is by being humble, modest, courteous and respectful to the less fortunate ones.
hope and despair
hope is what keeps life going. parents always hope their children will do well. hope makes us dream. hope builds in patience. life teaches us not to despair even in the darkest hour, because after every night there is a day. nothing remains the same we have only one choice keep moving on in life and be hopeful.
life teaches us not to regret over yesterday, for it has passed and is beyond our control. tomorrow is unknown, for it could either be bright or dull. so the only alternative is work hard today, so that we will enjoy a better tomorrow.In the passage, the author compares life to ________.
| A．a package |
| B．joy and sorrow |
| C．failure and success |
| D．hope and despair |
In which section can readers probably read the passage?
| A．Opinions. |
| B．Politics. |
| C．Educatuon. |
| D．Lifestyles. |
How is the passage organized?
| A．In order of rules. |
| B．In order of frequency. |
| C．By making comparision. |
| D．In order of importance. |
What’s the general meaning of the last sentence of the whole passage?
| A．If you work hard, you’ll have a better life in the future. |
| B．When choosing between “today”and“tomorrow”,you’d better enjoy tomorrow. |
| C．What you only can choose is to work hard today rather than tomorrow. |
| D．Enjoying a better tomorrow is your only choice. |
What’s the purpose of the passage?
| A．To encourage people to love each other. |
| B．To tell people how to deal with happiness and sorrow. |
| C．To remind people of keeping having a beautiful dream. |
| D．To give readers some information about life. |