How do people traditionally manufacture (制造) things? They usually start with a sheet of metal, wood or other material and cut, drill (钻) and shave it to create a desired shape. Sometimes, they use a mold (模具) made of metal or sand, pour liquid plastic or metal into it and let it cool to create a solid part.
Now, a completely different method is gaining popularity.
On Oct. 9, 2013, London Science Museum kicked off its new exhibition, 3-D: Printing the Future, with over 600 3-D printed objects on display, including space probes (探测器), toy dolls and even human organs – basically any product you can think of, reported Live Science.
You might find it hard to believe that an object can actually be “printed out” like a picture. But it is not that hard to understand how it works. Just as a traditional printer sprays (喷洒) ink onto paper line by line, modern 3-D printers spread material onto a surface layer by layer, from the bottom to the top, gradually building up a shape.
Instead of ink, the materials the 3-D printer uses are mainly plastic, resin (树脂) and certain metals. The thinner each layer is – from a millimeter to less than the width of a hair – the smoother and finer the object will be. And objects always come out in one piece, sparing you the trouble of putting different parts together afterward.
For example, 10 years ago a desktop 3-D printer might have cost ￡20,000 (200,000 yuan), while now it costs only about ￡1,000, according to the BBC. In fact, 3-D printers have been around for some time, but until recently they hadn’t been very popular since few people could afford them. Last year, though, saw a big decrease in the price of 3-D printers.
However, as 3-D printing technology becomes more commonplace, it may trigger certain problems. One of them is piracy (盗版). “Once you can download a coffee maker, or print out a new set of kitchen utensils (餐具) on your personal 3-D printer, who will visit a retail (零售的) store again?” an expert on 3-D printing told Forbes News.
Even more frightening, the world’s first 3-D printed gun was successfully fired in the US in May of this year, which means that 3-D printing could potentially give more people access to weapons.According to the article, in the future, 3-D printing technology will probably ______.
| A．change the way people make products |
| B．be applied as widely in our daily lives as computers |
| C．forbid many countries to make purchases of weapons |
| D．take the place of normal printers and save lots of energy |
What was the big event that happened in the 3-D printing industry last year?
| A．Over 600 3-D printed objects were on display in an exhibition. |
| B．3-D printing technology came to be used in various fields. |
| C．The world’s first 3-D printed gun was successfully made. |
| D．The 3-D printer became more affordable for consumers. |
What is the author’s attitude toward 3-D printing technology?
| A．Amused. | B．Objective. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Negative. |
San Francisco, a leader in urban recycling, is preparing to turn dog waste into energy.
Norcal Waste System Inc., the city’s largest garbage company, plans to test collection carts(回收车)and collection bags in a city-center park which is popular with dog walkers.
A city study found that almost 4 percent of all the garbage picked up at San Francisco homes was from animal waste, Norcal Waste spokesman Robert Reid said. San Francisco has about 120,000 dogs.
“The city asked us to start a program to recycle dog waste in order to cut back adding more waste in landfills(废渣埋填池) “,Reid said.
Dog waste will be poured into a methane digester(沼气池),and the methane it gives off will be collected and burned to make electricity or to heat homes.
“Dogs and cats in the United States produce about 10 million tons of waste a year,” Will Brinton, an environmental scientist said.
“As much as we love them, our pets leave a lot of fertilizer behind them in yards and on the street but that can be a major source of contamination of groundwater,” Brinton said.
European cities such as Zurich, Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna are starting biology programs to turn waste into gas ,he said.
San Francisco runs a great program to recycle bottles, cars, paper and other rubbish and now two-thirds of its garbage needn’t be carried to landfills .The city’s goal is a 75 percent drop by 2010 and zero new waste in landfills by 2020.San Francisco will plan to use dog waste for making __________.
| A．fertilizer | B．gas | C．electricity | D．methane |
What does the underlined word “ contamination” mean?
| A．Increase | B．Reduction | C．Flow | D．Pollution |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．San Francisco is short of electricity |
| B．San Francisco has done a lot of in rubbish recycling. |
| C．Fewer people will keep dogs as pets in San Francisco |
| D．There will be no rubbish by 2010 in San Francisco |
The passage is mainly about_______.
| A．San Francisco ‘s new policy for pet keepers |
| B．San Francisco ‘s new plan for recycling |
| C．how to keep a city clean |
| D．how to deal with rubbish |
| Album Name |
Introduction |
“Master of the Chinese Dulcimer” -----Xu Pingxin |
Xu Pingxin shows skillful technique and spellbinding(迷人的)musical expression on the Chinese dulcimer (yangqin) .His musicianship has won him international praise and he is considered one of the most successful yangqin players of the world. |
| “The Silk String Quartet(丝弦四重奏组)Contemporary &Traditional Chinese Music” |
Cheng Yu (pipa),Sun Zhuo (guzheng),Hu Bin (erhu)and Zhou Jinyan (yangqin)present traditional as well as modern pieces. The music describes moonlight scenes ,river landscapes, court dances and more. |
“Chinese Masterpieces of the Pipa & Guzheng” ---ChengYu |
Beautiful music as well as lively pieces played on pipa ,guzheng, xiao and dizi. Cheng Yu is an internationally famous pipa and guzheng virtuoso(名家),former soloist(独奏者)at the China Central Orchestra of Chinese Music in Beijing .Information about the artist, the music and the instruments in English, German, French and Spanish. |
TsengYungching----“Magic of the Chinese Flute” |
Beautiful Chinese flute (dizi) music played by world-famous flute virtuoso Tseng Yungching Accompanied(伴奏) on traditional Chinese instruments. |
Zhou Yu----“The Art of the Chinese Erhu” |
During his great musical career Zhou Yu won many awards in China and internationally .Here he presents an album of Chinese music, played on erhu with orchestral accompaniment: pipa, yangqin, ruan, and others. This is a very beautiful album with the typical “mystical ,dreamy” mood of Far Eastern music. Very enjoyable! |
If you are interested in playing the Chinese flute what will you probably buy?
| A．"Chinese Masterpieces of the Pipa & Guzheng" and "Magic of the Chinese Flute." |
| B．"The Silk String Quartet” and "Chinese Masterpieces of the Pipa & Guzheng." |
| C．"Master of the Chinese Dulcimer "and The Art of the Chinese Erhu." |
| D．"Magic of the Chinese Flute "and "The Silk String Quartet." |
Whose information is introduced in four different languages?
| A．Xu Pingxin’s | B．Cheng Yu’s | C．Tseng Yungching’s | D．Zhou Yu’s |
From the passage ,we can know Tseng Yungching is ______.
| A．a famous pipa and erhu player | B．a skillful guzheng virtuoso |
| C．a famous yangqin player | D．a world-famous flute player |
Which album has the typical mood of Far Eastern music?
| A．Zhou Yu ----“The Art of the Chinese erhu.” |
| B．“ The Silk String Quartet----Contemporary &Traditional Chinese Music.” |
| C．“ Master of the Chinese Dulcimer”---Xu Pingxin |
| D．Tseng Yungching-----“Magic of the Chinese Flute.” |
The most frightening words in the English language are,“ Our computer is down.” You hear it more and more when you are on business. The other day I was at the airport waiting for a ticket to Washington and the girl in the ticket office said,” I’m sorry, I can’t sell you a ticket .Our computer is down.”
“If your computer is down, just write me out a ticket.”
“I can’t write you out a ticket. The computer is the only one allowed to do so.”
I looked down the counter(柜台)and every passenger was just standing there drinking coffee and staring at the blank screen. Then I asked her,” What do you do?”
“We give the computer the information about your trip, and then it tells us whether you can fly or not.”
“So when it goes down, you go down with it.”
“That ‘s right, sir.”
“How long will the computer be down?” I wanted to know.
“I have no idea .Sometimes it’s down for 10 minutes , sometimes for two hours. There is no way we can find out without asking the computer , and since it’s down, it won’t answer us.”
After the girl told me they had no spare computer ,I said, “ Let’s forget the computer. What about your planes? They’re still flying aren’t they?”
“I couldn’t tell without asking the computer.”
“Maybe I could just go to the gate and ask the pilot if he’s flying to Washington.” I suggested.
“I wouldn’t know what gate to send you to .Even if the pilot was going to Washington, he couldn’t take you if you didn’t have a ticket.”
“Is there any other airline flying to Washington within the next few hours?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said, pointing at the dark screen.” Only ‘IT’ knows . ’IT’ can’t tell me.”
By this time there were quite a few people standing in lines .The words soon spread to other travelers that the computer was down Some people went, some people started to cry and still others kicked(踢) their luggage.The best title for the passage is ______.
| A．Asking the computer | B．The computer of the airport |
| C．The most useful words | D．When the computer is down |
What could the girl in the ticket office do for the passengers without asking the computer?
| A．She could answer the passengers’ questions | B．She could do nothing |
| C．She could sell tickets | D．She could write out tickets |
The last paragraph suggests that _____.
| A．modern computers won’t be down |
| B．computers can take the place of humans |
| C．computers may bring trouble to people |
| D．there will be great changes in computers |
"Mark Twain" was the name used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) when he wrote books. His father was a lawyer, but a poor one, who lived at Florida, Missouri. The family was so poor that Samuel did not receive much teaching. He had to learn all that he could from the people whom he met. His father died when he was very young, and then there was even less money than before.
Many of the men in this part of America worked in the ships on the great River Mississippi, and he did this himself at one time (1857).
Where did he find the name "Mark Twain"? It came from the great river itself. It was part of one of the cries used by men who worked in the ships. When a man called "By the mark twain!" he meant that the river was "two marks deep" there, that is to say, six feet deep ( "Twain" is an old form of the work "Two".) Samuel Clemens often heard these words when he was young, and he used them as a penname all his life.
During his work on the Mississippi he met travelers of all kinds, and this helped him a great deal when he started to write. But the number of travelers became smaller when war started in America in 1861. Many of the great ships on the river stopped work. Samuel left then and went to Nevada with his brother, who was at that time Governor of Nevada. There, near the town of Carson, Samuel became a gold miner, but he never made much money at the time. He soon saw that life in the gold mines was not for him. He also tried writing for the newspapers in Nevada, and this seemed more hopeful. He found that he could write.
He went to Europe in 1867 and visited France and Italy. In 1870 he married Olivia Langdon, and two years later he was spending nearly all his time writing. Among his books is his own story (1908).
He is now always known as Mark Twain, and many people do not even know that his family name was Clemens. He traveled in America and in England, and went to Oxford in 1907. He was one of the great American writers of the time, and could make his readers laugh – a thing which few writers can do. He died in 1910."Mark Twain" was _________.
| A．a famous American writer | B．name of a book |
| C．a great river in America | D．a large ship |
As a child, Samuel did not get much education because _________.
| A．his father died too early |
| B．the family was very poor |
| C．he disliked school very much |
| D．he could learn what he liked from the people he met |
What gave him a great deal when he started writing? _______
| A．His poor childhood | B．The Mississippi river |
| C．All kinds of travelers he met | D．His brother |
We can infer from the passage that ________.
| A．Samuel loved writing from his early age |
| B．Samuel did not love writing at the beginning |
| C．his writings to the newspaper were successful |
| D．his brother encouraged him to write more |
According to the writer of the passage, a good writer could _________.
| A．write a lot for his readers |
| B．make a lot of money for his family |
| C．cause his readers to laugh |
| D．travel everywhere he wanted |
I came to India a year ago to find a village in which I could live and write but it was many months before I settled down happily in this Himalayan community.
I wasted a lot of time looking for the “typical” village. Yet no such thing exists. Conditions are quite different from village to village. But the villages I stayed in had much in common---poor, dirty and backward. Often the villagers themselves were puzzled and doubtful. Why had I come? I had put aside my work as a political journalist because my ideas had changed. I had come to believe that what was happening in the Third World was more important than anything else. But to understand how three—quarters of the world population live, and what effect their future might have on ours, I felt that I first had to try and share their way of life.
In the end I chose a mountain village because it was little cooler than those in the plains. I took the bus from town along a rocky road. Then came a rough walk down a steep path to the river. After this I began the climb into the hills. Whenever I stopped to catch my breath, there was a beautiful scene. After several hours’ walk the village came into sight.After the writer had arrived in India,________.
| A．he spent a year writing about the place he lived in |
| B．he spent quite some time looking for a suitable place to live in |
| C．he stayed in an Indian village working for the poor |
| D．he lived in a Himalayan community for many months. |
While looking for a typical village, the writer found__________.
| A．he was searching for the impossible |
| B．all the villages were exactly the same |
| C．he was doing something enjoyable |
| D．the villagers were curious about him |
Before coming to India, the writer________.
| A．had been a successful politician |
| B．had made a decision to work for India |
| C．had studied India culture for some months |
| D．had worked for newspapers and magazines |
The write decided to change his way of life because__________.
| A．he no longer found his work interesting |
| B．he hoped to live a peaceful life in the countryside |
| C．he wanted to find out more about the Third World |
| D．he wanted to try his luck in a foreign country |
The village the writer finally chose to live in_________.
| A．lay at the end of a rocky road |
| B．had a beautiful sight of the river |
| C．was a short walk from the river |
| D．had better weather than those in the plains. |