My house is made of wood, glass and stone. It is also made of software.
If you come to visit, you'll probably be surprised when you come in: Someone will give you an electronic PIN to wear. The PIN tells the house who you are and where you are. The house uses this information to give you what you need. When it's dark outside, the PIN turns on the lights near you, and then turns them off as you walk away from them. Music moves with you, too. If the house knows your favorite music, it plays it for you. The music seems to be everywhere, but in fact other people in the house hear different music or no music. If you get a telephone call, only the nearest telephone rings.
Of course, you are also able to want something. There is a home control console (控制台) which is a small machine that turns things on and off around you.
The PIN and the console are new ideas, but they are in fact like many things we have today. If you want to go to a movie, you need a ticket. If I give you the key to my car, you can use my car. The car works for you because you have the key. My house works for you because you wear the PIN or hold the console.
I believe that in ten years from now, most new houses will have the systems that I've put in my house. The systems will probably be even bigger and better than the ones I've got.
I like to try new ideas. I know that some of my ideas will work better than others'. But I hope that one day I will stop thinking of these systems as new, and ask myself instead, ”How did I live without them?”
【小题1】The writer’s house is made of the following EXCEPT_________.
A.bamboo | B.wood | C.glass | D.software |
A.An IT expert. | B.A famous doctor. |
C.A sportsman. | D.An experienced teacher. |
A.it has your favorite music following you |
B.you can make a telephone call anywhere |
C.the writer is able to change his new idea into practice |
D.it is controlled by computers |
A.How to develop a new system. | B.The function of the PIN. |
C.How great the computers are. | D.Easy life in the future. |
【小题1】A
【小题2】A
【小题3】D
【小题4】D
解析试题分析:文章以作者的家为例,介绍了一个智能系统,可以用来操控家里的一切,从而给人们的生活带来便利。作者希望这样的系统能够在将来得到很好的普及。
【小题1】根据第一行“My house is made of wood, glass and stone. It is also made of software.”可知,作者的房子是由木头、干草、石头和软件建成的,没有用到竹子,故选A。
【小题2】根据“It is also made of software...The systems will probably be even bigger and better than the ones I've got...I know that some of my ideas will work better than others'”可知,作者不但给自己的房子安装了智能系统,他还设想不久的将来,这种系统能够得到普及。AIT专家;B知名医生;C运动员;D有经验的教师。根据文章大意可知,作者喜欢电脑科技,他很有可能是一位IT专家。故选A。
【小题3】根据“It is also made of software...There is a home control console (控制台) which is a small machine that turns things on and off around you.”可知,作者家的与众不同之处在于,它装有电脑控制的智能系统,故选D。
【小题4】文章没有介绍如何开发一个新系统,排除A;文章没有提到电脑的伟大之处,排除C;B项是对第二段的概括,排除B。文章主要设想了未来的舒适生活,故选D。
考点:科技类短文阅读
科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Twothirds of the world's major rivers have now been disrupted with more than 50,000 dams in an attempt to store water and provide power.In the US,there are more than 85,000 dams,disrupting large and small rivers,and in most cases transforming natural flow.The most famous of these,the Hoover Dam,constructed in the 1930s,is mainly responsible for the fact that the Colorado River no longer reaches the ocean.
Dams,besides all their attractive benefits,also have negative impacts.Creating a reservoir means a large area must be flooded.Communities may lose their land,houses and culturally important sites.
Environmentally,the new reservoir can be a paradise for wildlife,especially birds;however,it can cause greenhouse gas emissions and poison the water.Also,the dramatic rise and fall of water levels during dam releases is too extreme for plants and animals to cope with,resulting in dead zones around the shores of reservoirs.Fish that lay their eggs in the shallows,for example,may find a few hours later that those sites are high and dry.
Downstream(在下游方向)of a dam,the flow may be reduced so that farmers cannot irrigate their fields.Many rivers run through national borders,which may cause conflict over precious water.Disputes have been continuing between India and Pakistan,and Turkey,Syria and Iraq,for example.
Dams don't just block the flow of water.They also prevent fish migrations,and dams are a barrier to sediment(沉淀物)flows.Instead of rushing downriver,sediments get backed up against the dam wall,which causes the reservoir level to increase over time.However,sediments which are rich in nutrients have become a problem.The fertility of the entire system can be influenced,with soils lost during seasonal rains not being replaced.
Perhaps the biggest problem can be seen in deltas,which are sinking into the oceans.Groundwater is being extracted to feed the city,causing the city to sink,and sediments washed away by the ocean are no longer being replaced.The result is that sea level rises in cities from Shanghai to Alexandria.
【小题1】The Hoover Dam is mentioned in the passage in order to show________.
A.dams play an important role in our life |
B.dams have impacted the flow of the rivers |
C.dams make people lose their land and houses |
D.dams have many benefits as well as side effects |
A.a,c | B.c,e |
C.b,e | D.b,c |
A.will find more places to lay their eggs |
B.will face a dangerous habitat |
C.will be fed on more sediments rich in nutrients |
D.will find it easier to deal with the rise of water |
A.Their entire system will be influenced. |
B.The rainy season will last longer. |
C.They will lie below sea level in future. |
D.Rich soils will be washed away. |
A.Environmental loss of dams. |
B.Cultural loss of dams. |
C.Economic gain of dams. |
D.Environmental benefits of dams. |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Animals are considered to be endangered if the species is close to extinction throughout all or most of its environment. Animals become endangered for a variety of reasons.
Some animals become endangered when their habitats contain resources for humans. For example, commercial forest cutting in the Amazon Rainforest has seriously reduced the population of many animal species and lead to the extinction of other groups. Land itself is an important resource to humans since it provides us with living space, and when people replace animal habitats with human habitats, it can lead to larger loss of natural species.
Commercial and industrial operations may reduce land or water for animals and pollute their environment. Due to water pollution, the baiji, a fresh water dolphin native to China, was declared extinct, meaning it’s unlikely the population can recover. Even noise pollution from human activities can lead to the disorder of animal behavior.
Another cause that makes animals become endangered is over-fishing or over-hunting. Over-hunting whales led to near extinction of many species of whales.
The introduction of a non-native species to a habitat may make animals become endangered. The native species may not defend against a new one, and the effects can be dangerous. In Australia, the introduction of the common house cat led to the extinction of the red-fronted parakeet and has seriously damaged the populations of several small animals.
Introduced species can also bring new diseases with them. As a result, animals become endangered. Native animals may not have the power to fight against non-native diseases, and population levels can suffer. Another cause of disease is human-introduced chemicals. The use of DDT is believed to be one of the leading causes in driving the California Condor to near extinction.
When animals become endangered, the entire food chain can be affected. For example, in 2008 disease seriously harmed the honeybee, which is largely responsible for pollinating(授花粉) plants, including many fruits and vegetables. Without their pollination, a very large part of the human diet could be reduced. In fact, if the honeybee should become extinct, our life would be affected and billions of dollars would be lost. Therefore, many people argue that when animals become endangered it is in man’s own self-interest to protect them.
【小题1】The passage is mainly about ______.
A.ways of protecting animals’ habitats |
B.effects caused by species endangerment |
C.dangers of bringing in non-native species |
D.reasons why animals become endangered |
A.The extinction of the whales. |
B.The extinction of the red-fronted parakeet. |
C.The decreasing population of the dolphin. |
D.The effect of the honeybee on the human diet. |
A.Native species are likely to die from the new diseases. |
B.It’s hard for non-native species to survive. |
C.Non-native species will take up more space. |
D.Native species are so powerful for non-native species. |
A.loss of habitat | B.harmful chemicals |
C.forest cutting | D.unfamiliar diseases |
A.humans are to blame for species extinction |
B.small animals mean little to the whole food chain |
C.protection of the honeybee has cost billions of dollars |
D.humans protect animals for the benefit of themselves |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
As people in Beijing and northern China struggle with severe air pollution this winter,the toxic(有毒的)air is also making life hard for plants and even food crops of China.
"in the last 50 years there has been a 1 6-fold increase in ozone(臭氧)pollution”in the Beijing area,said Hanqin Tian of Auburn University in Alabama,who studies the effects of China's pollution and climate change on plants.
Ozone is particularly harmful to plants because it damages the pores(气孔) on leaves,called stomata,which plants use to regulate how much water evaporates from the leaves.That,in turn,affectS how much water a plant must take up through its roots.Changes in water uptake by plants have been documented in other parts of the world,including the United States,as having major impacts on regional groundwater and surface water supplies.
In studies of the long-term productivity of plants,Hanqin Tian and some of his colleagues show that ozone pollution,along with climate change,has been lowering plant productivity in China,which reduces the amount of carbon and other pollutants that the plants Can absorb to fight all the emissions from the burning offossil fuels.
The worst effects on plants are likely to be in areas where the growing pollution problem is just fairly new, said Arthur Chappelka, also a plant researcher at Auburn University.Some plants are more resistant to pollutants than others,he said,and the plants that are living today in long-polluted urban areas are likely to be only those that are very pollution tolerant.
Away from the cities, however, where crops are necded to feed China’s yast population, the effeets of the growing pollution on crops is a significant concern.
“In some ways it affects the crop production and food securiy of China,”said Hanqin Tian.“Air quality is really important for human health, plants and ecosystem and sustainability.”
The problem is bound to get worse as China continues to develop economically, he said, and so he and other researchers continue to urge the Chinese government to take action to reduce emissions from cars and industries.
【小题1】ozone does harm to plants mainly by ________.
A.exposing them to strong sunlight |
B.damaging the structure of their leaves |
C.adding more pores to the roots |
D.making the land unfit for the plants to grow |
A.Ozone pollution has increased 1 6 times in the past 30 years. |
B.Ozone pollution has lowered plant productivity alone. |
C.Plants can take in a large amount of carbon and other pollutants. |
D.The toxic air has few effects on food supply in China. |
A.Healthy foods are not available in Beijing. |
B.Some kinds of plants aren’t affected by air pollution. |
C.Crops in China are hard to feed its large population. |
D.People should stop developing economically |
A.care more about developing economy |
B.reduce the number of cars and industries |
C.continue to make more researches |
D.take measures to reduce carbon emissions |
A.Polluted air damages plants and crops |
B.Air pollution is becoming more serious |
C.China’s air pollution and climate changes |
D.Food security in China |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place.
The total amount of packaging increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.
Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for carrying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.
But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.
There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realise just how much unnecessary material are collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.
【小题1】What does the underlined phrase “over-consumption” refer to?
A.Using too much packaging. | B.Recycling too many wastes. |
C.Making more products than necessary. | D.Having more material than is needed. |
A.the tendency of cutting household waste | B.the fact of packaging overuse |
C.the rapid growth of super markets | D.the increase of packaging recycling |
A.helps control the greenhouse effect | B.means burning packaging for energy |
C.is the solution to gas shortage | D.leads to a waste of land |
A.Unpackaged products are of bad quality. | B.Supermarkets care more about packaging. |
C.It is improper to judge quality by packaging. | D.Other products are better packaged than food. |
A.Fighting wastefulness is difficult. | B.Needless material is mostly recycled. |
C.People like collecting recyclable waste. | D.The author is proud of their consumer culture. |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world.But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism (双语能力) are even more important than being able to converse with a wider range of people.Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter.It can have a deep effect on your brain, improving skills not related to language and even protecting against a serious mental disorder in old age.
This view of bilingualism is different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century.Researchers, educators and policy makers long considered a second language to be an interruption that prevented a child's school work and ability to think and understand things.They were not wrong about the interruption: there is ample evidence that in a bilingual \s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus creating situations in which one system disturbs the other.But this interruption, researchers are finding out, isn't so much a disturbance.It forces the brain to solve inside conflict, giving the mind a workout that strengthens its thinking muscles.
The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment."Bilinguals have to switch languages quite often—you may talk to your father in one language and to your mother in another language," says Albert Costa, a researcher at the University of Pompea Fabra in Spain.
"It requires keeping track of changes around you in the same way that we monitor our surroundings when driving." In a study comparing German-Italian bilinguals with Italian monolinguals on monitoring tasks, Mr.Costa and his colleagues found that the bilingual subjects not only performed better, but they also did so with less activity in parts of the brain involved in monitoring, showing that they did better in it.
【小题1】From the passage we can learn that experts used to believe that ______.
A.interruption forced a bilingual's brain to strengthen its thinking ability |
B.a second language stopped children's studying as well as mental development |
C.using two languages annoyed the children who have trouble in learning skills |
D.language systems were busy in a bilingual's brain when he was using languages |
A.change | B.use | C.speak | D.study |
A.Cautious. | B.Doubtful. | C.Concerned. | D.Favourable. |
A.How Bilinguals Use Languages |
B.What Bilingualism Is Really about |
C.Why Bilinguals Are More Intelligent |
D.When People Learn a Second Language |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Modern inventions have speeded up people's lives amazingly. Motor cars cover a hundred miles in light more than an hour, aircraft cross the world inside a day, while computers operate at lightning speed. Indeed, this love of speed seems never ending. Every year motor cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boasts(吹嘘) of saving precious seconds in handling tasks.
All this saves time, but at a price.When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane, our bodies tell us so. We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet lag;our bodies feel that they have been left behind in another time zone. Again, spending too long at computers results in painful wrists and fingers. Mobile phones also , according to some scientists;too much use may put harmful radiation into our brains, a consequence we do not like to think about.
However, what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not relax, or so it seems. We are so accustomed to constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and do nothing or even just one thing at a time. Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.
There was a time when some people's lives were devoted simply to the cultivation(耕耘) of the land or the care of cattle. No multi tasking there;their lives went on at a much gentler pace, and in a familiar pattern. There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard tasks our ancestors faced: they farmed with bare hands, often lived close to hunger, and had to make tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence.
【小题1】What's the passage mainly about?(within 10 words)
【小题2】List the difficulties our ancestors met according to the text.(within 15 words)
①
②
③
【小题3】Fill in the blank in the 2nd paragraph with proper words or phrases.
【小题4】Why do we make new products more and more time-saving according to Paragraph 1 of this passage?
【小题5】Translate the underlined sentence in the 3rd paragraph into Chinese.
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Every time you go to the supermarket you come away with your purchases packed in plastic bags. But wouldn’t it be kinder to the environment if you asked for paper bags instead?
The answer is not as easy as it might seem. Environmentalists say there are drawbacks to using both plastic bags and paper bags.
80 percent of groceries in the US are packed in plastic bags and the numbers are becoming huge. Consumers use between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags per year worldwide.
Some experts believe that all these bags harm the environment. Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down and, as it does so, poisonous materials are released into the water and soil.
Further damage is caused if plastic bags enter the sea. For example, endangered sea turtles cannot tell the bags from jellyfish, their main source of food, and often choke on them.
However, this kind of bag does have its advantages.
Paper bags use more energy and create more waste than plastic bags. Plastic bags require 40 percent less energy to produce and cause 70 percent less air pollution. They also release as much as 94 percent less waste into the water than paper ones do.
But paper bags do break down more quickly than plastic bags. They don’t endanger wildlife, either.
So what should we do? One possible solution would be to use biodegradable plastic bags. “Biodegradable” means that the bags break down naturally just like a piece of banana peel when it is left outside.
But until biodegradable technology improves, it might be easier to pack things you buy in reusable cloth bags.
【小题1】Compared to paper bags, plastic bags ______.
A.produce 6 percent more waste |
B.can be made biodegradable more easily |
C.can be used as a source of food |
D.save 40 percent of the energy |
A.Paper bags | B.Plastic bags |
C.Biodegradable plastic bags. | D.Cloth bags. |
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Have you ever wondered why birds sing? Maybe you thought that they were just happy.After all, you probably sing when you are happy.
Some scientists believe that birds do sing some of the time just because they are happy.However they sing most of the time for a very different reason.Their singing is actually a warning to other birds to stay out of their territory.
Do you know what a “territory” is? A territory is an area that an animal, usually the male, claims (声称) as its own.Only he and his family are welcome there. No other families of the same species are welcome.Your house is your territory where only your family and friends are welcome.If a stranger should enter your territory and threaten you, you might shout.Probably this would be enough to frighten him away.
If so, you have actually frightened the stranger away without having to fight him.A bird does the same thing.But he expects an outsider almost any time, especially at nesting (筑巢) season.So he is screaming all the time, whether he can see an outsider or not.This screaming is what we call a bird’s song, and it is usually enough to keep an outsider away.
【小题1】Some scientists believe that most of the time bird’s singing is actually ______.
A.an expression of happiness | B.a way of warning |
C.an expression of anger | D.a way of greeting |
A.A place where families of other species are not accepted. |
B.A place where a bird may shout at the top of its voice. |
C.An area for which birds fight against each other. |
D.An area which a bird considers to be its own. |
A.Because they want to invite more friends. |
B.Because their singing helps frighten outsiders away. |
C.Because they want to find outsiders around. |
D.Because their singing helps get rid of their fears. |
A.By comparing birds with human beings. |
B.By reporting experiment results. |
C.By describing birds’ daily life. |
D.By telling a bird’s story. |
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