Life in the twenty-first century
The World Future Society is a group of people from more than 80 countries who are interested in how modern technology is making our world better, and who write reports about how it will change our lives.                                                                                                                                            The things that we will be able to do in the twenty-first century (since the year 2000) should help us live better lives in many ways, at home and at work, in our own country and around the world. Here are just some of them, put into five groups.
People
People may live for up to 120 years and use new technology to help when people go blind, deaf and have other problems. The number of people over a hundred years old could go from 135,000 today to 2.2 million people by 2050. By 2015 people think that 100 million workers will be able to work from home for a company in a different country by using the Internet.
Money
Worldwide e-business will become even more successful with online shops that sell special products for each person, which will be brought to their house the next day.
Environment
The technology for making energy from wind and the Sun is growing very quickly. In the future wind and Sun energy could become much cheaper and many more countries could use it. This would be very useful in poor countries. The air in big cities would also become much cleaner and healthier as a result.
Society and culture
The Internet will help to create more worldwide friendships. Families may spend more time together as people will be able to do 24-hour online banking and shopping.
Technology      
The new science of “nanotechnology” (very small robots or machines) will make all sorts of products smaller and lighter. Very, very small machines could take away rubbish, make things in factories, and help inside the human body by taking away fat. By 2012 people will be able to wear these small machines that look like watches, which will give them lots of information about their body and keep them healthy.
【小题1】What does the World Future Society do?

A．Look at how technology will make people happy.

B．Look at how technology will change the world.

C．Make technology work better for themselves.

D．Make small machines to make us healthier.

【小题2】 How will technology help people?

A．Help all people live for over 120 years.

B．Help disabled people to get jobs.

C．Make people healthier and live longer.

D．Help workers to use the Internet.

【小题3】How will people go shopping?

A．In special shops.

B．Using the Internet at certain times.

C．Using the Internet any time of the day.

D．Using nanotechnology.

【小题4】 How will technology help the environment?

A．Poor countries will have enough energy.

B．Wind energy will be cheaper than Sun energy.

C．We will not need wind and Sun energy.

D．Wind and Sun energy will be cheaper.

【小题5】The new science of “nanotechnology” will _______.

A．drive small machines to work for people

B．make good-quality watches

C．allow people to eat more

D．make very small products

Life in the twenty-first century
The World Future Society is a group of people from more than 80 countries who are interested in how modern technology is making our world better, and who write reports about how it will change our lives.                                                                                                              The things that we will be able to do in the twenty-first century (since the year 2000) should help us live better lives in many ways, at home and at work, in our own country and around the world. Here are just some of them, put into five groups.
People
People may live for up to 120 years and use new technology to help when people go blind, deaf and have other problems. The number of people over a hundred years old could go from 135,000 today to 2.2 million people by 2050. By 2015 people think that 100 million workers will be able to work from home for a company in a different country by using the Internet.
Money
Worldwide e-business will become even more successful with online shops that sell special products for each person, which will be brought to their house the next day.
Environment
The technology for making energy from wind and the Sun is growing very quickly. In the future wind and Sun energy could become much cheaper and many more countries could use it. This would be very useful in poor countries. The air in big cities would also become much cleaner and healthier as a result.
Society and culture
The Internet will help to create more worldwide friendships. Families may spend more time together as people will be able to do 24-hour online banking and shopping.
Technology    
The new science of “nanotechnology” (very small robots or machines) will make all sorts of products smaller and lighter. Very, very small machines could take away rubbish, make things in factories, and help inside the human body by taking away fat. By 2012 people will be able to wear these small machines that look like watches, which will give them lots of information about their body and keep them healthy.
【小题1】What does the World Future Society do?

A．Look at how technology will make people happy.

B．Look at how technology will change the world.

C．Make technology work better for themselves.

D．Make small machines to make us healthier.

【小题2】 How will technology help people?

A．Help all people live for over 120 years.

B．Help disabled people to get jobs.

C．Make people healthier and live longer.

D．Help workers to use the Internet.

【小题3】How will people go shopping?

A．In special shops.

B．Using the Internet at certain times.

C．Using the Internet any time of the day.

D．Using nanotechnology.

【小题4】 How will technology help the environment?

A．Poor countries will have enough energy.

B．Wind energy will be cheaper than Sun energy.

C．We will not need wind and Sun energy.

D．Wind and Sun energy will be cheaper.

【小题5】The new science of “nanotechnology” will _______.

A．drive small machines to work for people

B．make good-quality watches

C．allow people to eat more

D．make very small products

B

If you want to find out a piece of information about anything , the best place to search for it is Wikepedia. This online encyclopedia is written by thousands of people around the world. Anyone can add or change the information if he or she finds it not correct or not well written. In this way, people who know a lot about a certain subject can write about it even if they are not university professors.

What is more, Wikepedia includes articles written in about 235 languages. This fact makes it one of the few websites (网站)on the Internet that are truly international. It was started in 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, as a free online English-language encyclopedia project. By April 2008, over 10 million articles had been put on Wikipedia. A quarter of the articles are in English. Wikipedia is also a place where people can find the latest news.

However, Wikipedia has its own problems. There have been many complaints that some of the information on Wikipedia is not accurate and some important subjects are not included. This has led to arguments between the writers of articles. The people running Wikipedia say that the accuracy of the information is improving and that it is one of the top 20 visited websites on the Internet.

So, if you are looking for some information, why not try Wikipedia?

1.Wikipedia is ___________.

A．a computer game                       B．a name of a magazine

C．a free university                        D．an online encyclopedia

2.People who write on Wikipadia__________.

A．know much about a certain subject          B．likes writing different stories

C．should be university professors             D．are usually famous scientists

3.Wikipedia is truly international because_________.

A．everything is written in English

B．the articles are in about 253 language

C．there are over 10 million articles

D．each writer can write in different languages

4.Besides information about different subjects, people can also_____ on Wikipedia.

A．watch interesting movies                 B．send e-mail to friends

C．read about the latest news                D．play exciting games

 

It was reported today that in China, 56% of people who write blogs(博客) do so as a personal diary and 83% use their blogs for sending messages to friends. It was also found that there is a strong East- West difference. In places like the US, blogs that offer information on news attract more readers but in China, blogs are more likely to be about sharing personal feelings.
It seems that bloggers can be divided into three types: IT bloggers, bloggers who record their ordinary feelings and media（媒体） bloggers.
When blogging first started, the IT people had the technological advantage and they took the chance to put their thoughts on the web. Some of these IT people now have had over a million people read their blogs.
The next wave of bloggers did not have any training as writers or in IT and wrote about normal daily life. Media bloggers, however, are trained writers, such as journalists and editors. When the many media bloggers showed up, the everyday bloggers lost most of their readers. Media bloggers have the advantage of knowing how to communicate well through the written words.
However, the normal bloggers are still out there and increasing in number. It seems that blogging is the new way to express your feelings. People feel like the world is listening to, or rather reading, their problems, even if they are not.
【小题1】 From the passage we know that________.

A．56% of the Chinese write blogs

B．people in US like to read blogs for news

C．the Chinese never share feelings with each other through blogs

D．the way that Chinese use blogs is not different from the West

【小题2】 ________wrote more blogs at the very beginning .

A．IT bloggers	B．Media bloggers
C．Normal bloggers	D．US bloggers

【小题3】Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A．There will be more and more normal bloggers.

B．Only bloggers express their feelings through the Internet.

C．All people in the world are listening to the bloggers’ voice.

D．Media bloggers didn’t have the advantage of knowing how to communicate well.

【小题4】The underlined expression in the passage can be best replaced by “________”.

A．increased.	B．appeared .
C．arrived.	D．grew.

If you want to find out a piece of information about anything, the best place to search for it is Wikipedia. This online encyclopedia(百科全书) is written by thousands of people around the world. Anyone can add or change the information if he or she finds it not correct or not well written. In this way, people who know a lot about a certain subject can write about it even if they are not university professors.

What is more, Wikipedia includes articles written in about 235 languages. This fact makes it one of the few websites on the Internet that are truly international. It was started in 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, as a free online English-language encyclopedia project. By April 2008 over 10 million articles had been put on Wikipedia. A quarter of the articles in English. Wikipedia is also a place where people can find the latest news.

However, Wikipedia has its own problems. There have been many complaints that some of the information on Wikipedia is not accurate and some important subjects are not included. This has led to arguments between the writers of articles. The people running Wikipedia say that the accuracy of the information is improving and that it is one of the top 20 visited websites on the Internet.

So, if you are looking for some information, why not try Wikipedia?

1.Wikipedia is ___________.

A．a computer game                       B．an online magazine

C．a free university                        D．a website encyclopedia

2.People who write on Wikipedia__________.

A．know much about a certain subject          B．likes writing different stories

C．can’t be university professors             D．are usually famous scientists

3.The underlined word “accurate” means __________.

A．错误的           B．准确的           C．有条理的         D．逻辑的

4.Which is TRUE according to the passage?  

A．Wikipedia includes articles written in about 253 languages.

B．People can find information about different subjects on Wikipedia.

C．Wikipedia is the only truly international website on the Internet.

D．Half of the articles on Wikipedia are written in English.