Doyouwanttohelpothers—butdon’t-优题课

Before leaving work, Steve Lee likes to use his cell phone to turn on his heat and air condition system at home. So by the time he gets through traffic into his front door, the temperature inside is perfect. You may wonder what a so-called smart home can do inside.
Lee works for a company called Smarthome. com, testing and living with many of his company’s home automation gadgets(自动化小配件), like this multifunction touch screen that controls devices around the house and even connects to the Internet traffic cameras.
“I have cameras, and they follow all the way down the freeway to work, ”said Lee with pride, “What’s going on at home when you are away? No problem, install some wireless cameras and controllers and from any computer in the world with an Internet connection, you can watch your house. ”
“You can check on the house, and I can look at the temperature. Believe it or not, if I want to turn on lights ahead of time, I can, ”added Lee.
We sat in Steve’s California kitchen and with the right password, turned on the kitchen counter lights at his boss’ house in Wisconsin. Steve did have permission to log on(登录).
“If you do know the password and you want to play a trick on your wife, you could turn lights on and off remotely. ”
This new technology, which can automatically turn on water sprinklers when humidity is low, or turn off a pool pump when it is not in use, is no longer expensive. Several hundred dollars for a basic system is enough and it is not hard to install.
Sure the convenience is nice but many people who like the security advantages like making sure kids are safe with the help of camera monitors and bedside alerts.
“I can notice that maybe one of my children wakes up in the middle of the night once the light switch is turned on. ”
What a smart home can’t do is get you a snack and you have to leave the couch for that.
What does the underlined word “password” in Paragraph 5 mean?

A．Security code.

B．Crossword.

C．Passport.

D．Touch screen.

What can be inferred from this passage?

A．Steve’s boss trusted him very much.

B．Steve doesn’t like to play jokes on his family.

C．Steve could log on his boss’ home because he had been given the key.

D．It’s expensive and difficult to apply a basic smart home system.

According to the passage, the following is often a must for a smart home EXCEPT a .

A．cell phone	B．computer
C．camera	D．car

What can’t a smart home do according to the passage?

A．Turning on the light automatically.

B．Getting the owner some food.

C．Turning off a pool pump.

D．Watching over the home’s safety.

In which section of a newspaper will this passage probably be found?

A．Entertainment.

B．Science & Technology.

C．Health & Care.

D．Biography.

Some colors people see late at night could cause signs of the condition mental health experts call clinical depression(临床抑郁症). That was the finding of a study that builds on earlier study findings. They show that individuals who live or work in low levels of light overnight can develop clinical depression.
Doctors use the word clinical depression to describe severe form of depression. Signs may include loss of interest or pleasure in most activities, low energy levels and thoughts of death or suicide.
In the new study, American investigators designed an experiment that exposed hamsters（仓鼠）to different colors. The researchers chose hamsters because they are nocturnal, which means they sleep during the day and are active at night. The animals were separated into four groups. One group of hamsters was kept in the dark during their night-time period. Another group was placed in front of a blue light, a third group slept in front of a white light, while a fourth was put in front of a red light. After four weeks, the researchers noted how much sugary water the hamsters drank. They found that the most depressed animals drank the least amount of water.
Randy Nelson, at Ohio State University, says animals that slept in blue and white light appeared to be the most depressed. “What we saw is that these animals didn’t show any sleep interruptions at all but they did mess up biological clock (生物钟) genes and they did show depressive sign but if they were in the dim red light, they did not.” He says there’s a lot of blue in white light. This explains why the blue light and white light hamsters appear to be more depressed than the hamsters seeing red light or darkness.
From the text we know that ________ made the hamster feel depressed.

A．the amount of the water

B．the colour of the light

C．the loss of pleasure

D．the level of energy

What was the purpose of the experiment on hamsters?

A．To show how well they slept.

B．To see how much sugary water they drank.

C．To explain why they liked dark colours.

D．To find out what caused the depression on them.

The author explains the clinical depression by _________.

A．reporting an experiment process

B．presenting research data

C．setting down general rules

D．giving his own experience

Where can we probably find the text?

A．In a science magazine.

B．In a physics textbook

C．In a tourist guidebook.

D．In an official announcement.

“Selfie” (自拍) joins ranks of dictionary words.
In 2002, an Australian man went to his friend’s 21st birthday party. He got drunk, tripped on some steps and cut his lip. He took a picture of his injuries and shared it with his friends on an online forum. “And sorry about the focus,” he wrote, “it was a selfie.” That was the first recorded use of the word “selfie”, according to linguistic experts at Oxford Dictionaries.
On Nov 19, Oxford Dictionaries declared “selfie” Word of the Year for 2013, in honor of the term having taken over the world thanks to millions of smart phone self-portraits and the resulting shares on social media.
So what does the choice of the word say about our culture? Mary Elizabeth Williams, writing in Salon magazine, says the word reminds us that contemporary culture is defined by our narcissism(自恋).Megan Jackson from a local newspaper points out a selfie may only focus on appearance.
Selfies invite judgment based on appearance alone. What kind of cultural influence does this have on women? Erin Gloria Ryan on Jezebel says selfies teach young woman to obsess over their appearance and judge themselves on the basis of beauty rather than accomplishments. “They’re a reflection of the warped way we teach girls to see themselves as decorative,” said Ryan.
In Slate magazine, Rachel Simmons has the opposite view. She argues that selfies are an example of young women promoting themselves and taking control of their own self-presentation. Think of each one, she says, as “a tiny pulse of girl pride —a shout-out to the self”.
Which of the following is true about the first use of “selfie”?

A．The Australian man created it to celebrate his friend’s 21^st birthday.

B．The Australian man created by chance when he got drunk and shared his photo online.

C．The Oxford Dictionary used it to thank the creation of smart phone.

D．The social media were so advanced that they made the word transmitted.

The underlined word “tripped” in the first paragraph probably means “________”.

A．traveled	B．stepped lightly
C．fell down	D．made mistakes

Who holds a positive opinion towards selfie in the life of women?

A．Mary Elizabeth.	B．Megan Jackson.
C．Erin Gloria Ryan.	D．Rachel Simmons.

The text is mainly concerned with ________.

A．the introduction of the word “selfie”

B．the choice of the word “selfie”

C．the history of the word “selfie”

D．the characteristics of the word “selfie”

Tayka Hotel De Sal
Where: Tahua, Bolivia
How much: About $95 a night
Why it’s cool: You’ve stayed at hotels made of brick or wood, but salt? That’s something few can claim. Tayka Hotel de Sal is made totally of salt—including the beds (though you’ll sleep on regular mattresses (床垫) and blankets).The hotel sits on the Salar de Uyuni, a prehistoric dried-up lake that’s the world’s biggest salt flat. Builders use the salt from the 4,633-square-mile flat to make the bricks, and glue them together with a paste of wet salt that hardens when it dries. When rain starts to dissolve the hotel, the owners just mix up more salt paste to strengthen the bricks.
Green Magic Nature Resort
Where: Vythiri, India
How much: About $240 a night
Why it’s cool: Ridding a pulley(滑轮)-operated lift 86 feet to your treetop room is just the start of your adventure. As you look out of your open window—there is no glass!—you watch monkeys and birds in the rain forest canopy. Later you might test your fear of heights by crossing the handmade rope bridge to the main part of the hotel, or just sit on your bamboo bed and read. You don’t even have to come down for breakfast—the hotel will send it up on the pulley-drawn “elevator”.
Dog Bark Park Inn B&B
Where: Cottonwood, Idaho
How much: $92 a night
Why it’s cool: This doghouse isn’t just for the family pet. Sweet Willy is a 30-foot-tall dog with guest rooms in his belly. Climb the wooden stairs beside his hind leg to enter the door in his side. You can relax in the main bedroom, go up a few steps of the loft in Willy’s head, or hang out inside his nose. Although you have a full private bathroom in your quarters, there is also a toilet in the 12-foot-tall fire hydrant outside.
Gamirasu Cave Hotel
Where: Ayvali, Turkey
How much: Between $130 and $475 a night.
Why it’s cool: This is caveman cool! Experience what it was like 5,000 years ago, when people lived in these mountain caves formed by volcanic ash. But your stay will be much more modern. Bathrooms and electricity provide what you expect from a modern hotel, and the white volcanic ash, called tufa, keeps the rooms cool, about 65℉in summer.(Don’t worry—there is heat in winter.)
What is the similarity of the four hotels?

A．Being expensive.	B．Being beautiful.
C．Being natural.	D．Being unique.

What does the underlined part “Sweet Willy” refer to?
A. The building of Dog Bark Park Inn B&B.
B. The name of a pet dog of the hotel owner.
C. The name of the hotel.
D. The name of the hotel owner.
Which of the hotel makes you have a feeling of living in the far past?

A．Tayka Hotel De Sal

B．Green Magic Nature Resort

C．Dog Bark Park Inn B&B

D．Gamirasu Cave Hotel

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to the patients at the clinic.
One evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful-looking man. He’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old son. “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus till morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. “I guess it’s my face…I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…” For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.”
I told him we would find him a bed. When I had finished the dishes, I talked with him. He told me he fished for a living to support his five children, and his wife, who was hopelessly crippled (残疾的) from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint. Next morning, just before he left, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I come back and stay the next time?” He added, “Your children made me feel at home.”
On his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and the largest oysters (牡蛎) I had ever seen. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.
In the years he came to stay overnight with us and there was never a time that he did not bring us vegetables from his garden. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned how to accept the bad without complaint when facing the misfortune.
Why did the author agree to let the man spend the night in his house at last?

A．Because the man said others refused to accommodate him.

B．Because the man said he would not cause much inconvenience.

C．Because the man said he had come from the eastern shore.

D．Because the man said he had been hunting for a room since noon.

How long would it take the man to travel from his home to Baltimore by bus?

A．About 1 hour.	B．About 2 hours.
C．About 3 hours.	D．About 4 hours.

From the text we can know that __________.

A．the author’s children were kind and friendly to the man

B．the man was fed up with his hard-work and his family

C．John Hopkins Hospital provided rooms for the patients to live in

D．the author and his family were thought highly of by his neighbors

The author’s family were grateful to know the man because __________.

A．he often brought them fish and vegetables from his garden

B．he paid them money for his staying

C．he taught them how to accept the bad without complaint

D．he stayed only overnight with the writer’s family