Are you a media addict who would go mad after two hours without TV, friend requests, exciting online games and your mobile or would you easily survive?
Recently, university students around the world were asked to volunteer in a global experiment called Unplugged. It was designed to see how young people would react if they were asked to observe a total media ban （禁令）by unplugging （切断）all forms of media devices for 24 hours.
Unplugged is being run by Dr. Roman Gerodimos, a lecturer in Communication and Journalism at Bournemouth University. Dr. Gerodimos said there were already signs of how much the exercise affected volunteers. " They're reporting withdrawal symptoms （脱瘾症状），overeating, feeling nervous, lonely and disconnected. "
During the 24-hour experiment, three of the experiment's guinea pigs had to bear one intrusion （扰乱）from the media ： a BBC reporter and cameraman who followed them around for the day. They were asked to write down 100 lines about their day off-line, but of course, they all waited until the next day when they had access to their laptops.
Elliot Day wrote，"Today, my whole morning routine （常规）was thrown up into the air. Despite being aware of the social importance of the media, I was surprised by how empty my life felt without the radio or newspapers. "
And Charlotte Gay wrote，" I have to say the most difficult item for me to be without has been my mobile; not only is it a social tool, but also it's my main access point of communication. "
Earlier in the year, a UK government study found that in the UK we spend about half our waking hours using the media, often plugged into several things at once.
So, with technology continuing to develop at an alarming rate, how much time will you set aside for sleep in the future?What's the purpose of the first paragraph?
| A．o ask for information. | B．To entertain the readers. |
| C．To lead to the topic. | D．To present an idea. |
About Dr. Roman Gerodimos' experiment, we know that __________.
| A．volunteers felt uncomfortable in it |
| B．three pigs were included in it |
| C．a BBC reporter discussed the experiment |
| D．volunteers were allowed to take their laptops |
The underlined expression "was thrown up into the air" in the fifth paragraph means __________.
| A．went on normally | B．was completely disturbed |
| C．turned out perfectly | D．was badly designed |
Which of the following can best serve as the title of the passage?
| A．Surviving without the media. |
| B．Unplugging your life. |
| C．Valuing social communication. |
| D．Setting aside time for sleep. |
With alarming regularity, we read about oil tankers having accidents near land and the terrible consequences of the oil spills(泄露) on people, nature, and the environment.
Millions of dollars have been used in developing special chemicals to help dismiss the spills and to clean up the animals, beaches, and land spoiled by the oil. Unfortunately, when many of these chemicals are used, more damage is caused to the environment, especially to lives in the sea.
Of all of today’s environmental disasters, an oil spill may actually be one of the least serious. Although oil is poisonous, it is a natural material. In the end, it breaks down naturally. There are, of course, long-term effects, but it is usually more serious in the short term.
Nature by itself works better than chemical materials, but when there is a spill we demand that governments act immediately with as much hi-tech knowledge as possible. In 1967 the tanker Torrey Canyon sank off the Scilly Isles near the coast of England and spilled 120,000 tones of oil into the ocean. If you go there today, you will find it hard to see any sign that it ever happened.
Governments seem to accept the risk of transporting millions of tons of oil by ship every day so that we can fill up our cars and drive around and cause even more environmental damage. Interestingly, the b
iggest companies in the world produce cars, and the next biggest supply the gasoline to make them run!
We should be thinking more about reducing our dependency on oil. Governments should be encouraging research into new technologies, such as cars run by solar power(太阳能), electricity, hydrogen, and so on. Much of this research has, in the past, been held back by the oil, gas, and coal.
If the world’s millions of cars were 10% more efficient(高效的) — and the industry could easily produce cars at least twice as efficient — we would need many fewer tankers crossing the oceans each year. If this happened, the risks of oil spills would be reduced, and the air we breathe would be cleaner and fresher, too.What is the passage mainly talking about?
| A．Oil spills pollution. | B．What oil pollution is. |
| C．Oil tanker accidents. | D．How to reduce oil pollution. |
How does the author support the idea that oil spills are not as serious as people believe?
| A．By giving a description. | B．By making an argument. |
C．By giving an example. |
D．By drawing a diagram. |
What does the underlined word “risk” in Paragraph 5 refer to?
| A．Transportation depending more on oil. | B．Poisonous oil breaking down naturally. |
| C．Millions of tons of oil spilling into the sea. | D．More environmental damage being caused. |
Which suggestion is made for reducing oil tank accidents according to the passage?
| A．We should build safer oil tankers in the near future. |
| B．We should develop new technologies to cut oil use. |
| C．Tankers should not be allowed to sail near the coastlines. |
| D．Countries should build more oil pipelines under the sea. |
The Pillow
At the age of sixteen, I joined a volunteer group with my dad. I went on my first volunteer project in West Virginia. On the night we arrived, we discovered that “our family” was living in a trailer (拖车) that was in poor condition. A crew had been working on it for two weeks, but every time they finished one problem, another surfaced.
We decided the only reasonable solution was to build a new house—something unusual but necessary under these circumstances. The family was overjoyed with their new house that was twenty by thirty feet with three bedrooms, a bath and a kitchen.
On Tuesday of that week,
while we ate lunch together, I asked the family’s three boys, Josh, Eric and Ryan, “What do you want for your new room?” Expecting toys and other gadgets that children usually ask for, we were astonished when Josh responded, “I just want a bed.”
The boys had never slept in a bed! They were accustomed to plastic mats. That night we had a meeting and decided that beds would be the perfect gift. On Thursday night, a few adults in our group drove to the nearest city and bought beds and new bedding.
When we saw the delivery truck coming, we told the family about the surprise. We could hardly contain ourselves. It was like watching excited children on Christmas morning.
That afternoon, as we fitted the frames of the beds together, Eric ran into the house to watch us. Too dirty to enter his room, he observed with wide-eyed enthusiasm from the doorway.
As my father slipped a pillowcase onto one of the pillows, Eric asked, “What is that?”
“A pillow,” he replied.
“What do you do with it?” Eric continued to ask.
“When you go to sleep, you put your head on it,” I answered softly. Tears came to my eyes as my father handed Eric the pillow.
“Oh…that’s soft,” he said, hugging it tightly.
Now, when my sister or I start to ask for something that seems urgent, my dad gently asks, “Do you have a pillow?”
We know exactly what he means. The writer’s first volunteer project was ______.
| A．working on a poor trailer | B．helping a poor family |
| C．donating beds and bedding | D．dealing with a housing problem |
On hearing Josh’s answer, the writer was shocked because ______.
| A．the family lived in a trailer | B．he expected to get some toys |
| C．he didn’t know what a bed was | D．the boys had no bed to sleep in |
From the passage, we can learn that Eric had never seen ______ before.
| A．a trailer | B．a truck | C．a pillow | D．a house |
By saying “Do you have a pillow?”, the writer’s father means that ______.
| A．what they want to get may be unnecessary |
| B．they should not waste money on small things |
| C．they should do more volunteer work for the poor |
D．what he w ill buy is not what they want but a pillow |
Microwaves may be great at warming up food, but what about warming people?
Using microwaves to directly heat owners of a room would save much of the energy wasted by heating walls and furn
iture. And despite popular ideas about microwaves, this technique would be safe, according to Charles R. Buffler of the Microwave Research Center in Marlborough, New Hampshire. Low-power microwaves only penetrate (贯穿) the skin (low-power microwave penetration in a ham is about 0.2 inches, for example) and with no negative effects.
To test this idea, Buffler subjected himself to microwaves in a special room using a standard 500-watt, 2459 MHz magnetron (磁控管). He found that a person will start to feel warmth at about 20 milliwatts per square centimeter (mw. /sq.cm.); a satisfactory feeling of warmth occurs between 35 and 50 mw./sq.cm. By comparison, a person standing in noonday summer sun feels the amount of 85 mw./sq.cm. And a frozen meat pie in your microwave oven receives about 1000 mw./sq. cm.
In houses of the future, each room could be provided with its own magnetron, says Buffler. When you stepped into the living room, for example, a motion detector would turn on the magnetron, filling the room with low-power microwaves. In the same way that a microwaves oven heats up a hamburger, but not the plate it’s on, you would feel warmth from the microwaves without changing the temperature of your coffee table. (You could, however, make your favorite easy chair even more comfortable by treating it with a radiation-absorbing chemical.)
While it might be some time before homeowners are comfortable enough with the idea to set up whole body microwave heaters in houses, Buffler says microwaves may attract livestock farmers. Lambs that are born outdoors in winter, for example, are frequently lost to cold. Microwaves could warm the lambs safely and quickly. Which of the following can tell the main idea of the passage?
| A．A new heating system. | B．A new microwave oven. |
| C．A popular technique. | D．The magnetron. |
The test conducted by Buffler shows that when a person feels comfortable warmth, he receives about ____.
| A．20 mw. / sq. cm. | B．40 mw. / sq. cm. |
| C．60 mw. / sq. cm. | D．85 mw. / sq. cm. |
According to paragraph 4, which of the following fills the room with low-power microwaves?
| A．The magnetron. | B．The motion detector. |
| C．The microwave oven. | D．The radiation-absorbing chemical. |
Which of the following statements about microwave heaters would Buffler most probably agree with?
| A．Microwave heaters will soon be widely used by homeowners. |
| B．Microwave heaters sometimes make people feel uncomfortable. |
C．Microwave heaters will be probably first used by livestock farmers to prot ect their lambs in winter. |
| D．Microwave heaters cannot be accepted by the public because they are somewhat unsafe. |
As you move around your home, take a good look at the things you have. It is likely that your living room will have a television set and a video, and your kitchen a washing machine and a microwave oven. Your bedroom drawers will be filled with almost three times as many clothes as you need. You almost certainly own a car and possibly a home computer, holiday abroad at least once a year and eat out at least once a week.
Now, perhaps, more than ever before, people are wondering what life is all about, and what it is for. Seeking material success is beginning to trouble large numbers of people around the world. They feel that the long hours work culture to make more money to buy more things is eating up their lives, leaving them very little time or energy for family or pastimes. Many are turning to other ways of living and downshifting is one of them.
Six percent of workers in Britain took the decision to downshift last year. One couple who downshifted is Daniel and Liz. They used to work in central London. He was a newspaper reporter and she used to work for an international bank. They would go to work by train every day from their large house in the suburbs (郊区), leaving their two children with a nanny (保姆). Most evenings Daniel wouldn’t get home until eight or nine o’clock, and nearly twice a month he would have to fly to New York for meetings. They both earned a large amount of money but began to feel that life
was passing them by.
Nowadays, they run a farm in the mountains of Wales. “I always wanted to have a farm here,” says Daniel, “and we took almost a year to make the decision to downshift. It’s taken some getting used to, but it has been worthy of. We have to think twice now about spending money on car repairs and we no longer have any holidays. However, I think it’s made us stronger as a family, and the children are a lot happier.”
Liz, however, is not quite sure. “I used to enjoy my job, even though it was hard work and long hours. I’m not really a country girl, but I suppose I’m gradually getting used to looking after the animals. One thing I do like, though, is being able to see more of my children. My advice for other people wanting to do the same is not to think about it too much or you might not do it at all.”What do the first two paragraphs tell us?
| A．People seldom work long hours to make money. |
| B．People hardly buy more things than necessary. |
| C．People are sure everything they own is in the right place. |
| D．People realize there is more to life than just making money. |
When Daniel was a reporter he _____.
| A．lived in central London | B．disliked his job |
| C．missed his children | D．was well paid |
Daniel and Liz both agree that the move to the farm _____.
A．was easy to organize |
B．has improved family life |
| C．was extremely expensive | D．has been a total success |
What does the underlined “it” in the last paragraph refer to?
| A．Child-caring. | B．Liz’s advice. | C．Downshifting. | D．Liz’s job. |
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Please visit our website and contact us for further information or assistance in planning your Yellowstone Country Adventure Vacation, or book a reservation online! Make your Yellowstone Dream a reality. What can we learn from the first paragraph?
| A．Yellowstone Tour & Travel is a company with a history of over 25 years. |
| B．Yellowstone Tour & Travel is a company serving people 25 years. |
| C．Yellowstone Tour & Travel has a one-stop shop for most vacations. |
| D．Yellowstone Tour & Travel can lend visitors planes and ships. |
Yellowstone Tour & Travel can serve the following EXCEPT _________.
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If you want to see grey bears, buffalo, you may join __________.
| A．Yellowstone and Grand Teton Park Guided Summer Van Tours |
| B．Lamar Valley Wolf & Wildlife Tour |
| C．Snowmobile Yellowstone Park |
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In Lamar Valley, you can have the best opportunity to see __________ in winter.
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