For years scientists have been worried about the effects of air pollution on the earth’s natural conditions. Some believe the air inside many houses may be more dangerous than the air outside. It may be one hundred times worse.
Indoor air pollution can cause a person to feel tired, to suffer eye pain, headache and other problems. Some pollutants can cause breathing disorders, diseases of blood and even cancer. Most scientists agree that every modern house has some kind of indoor pollution.
People have paid more attention to the problem now. It is true that when builders began making houses and offices they did not waste energy. To do this they build buildings that limited the flow of air between inside and outside. They also began using man-made building materials. These materials are now known to let out harmful gases.
As the problem became more serious, scientists began searching for a way to deal with it. They discovered a natural pollution control system for building—green plants. Scientists do not really know how plants control air pollution. They believe that a plant’s leaves absorb or take in the pollutants. In exchange the plant lets out oxygen through its leaves and tiny organizations on its roots. Scientists suggest that all buildings should have one large plant or several small plants inside for every nine square meters of space. Studies of different plants show that each absorbs different chemicals. So the most effective way to clean the air is to use different kinds of plants. Having green plants inside your house can make it a prettier and more healthy place.
【小题1】Generally speaking, indoor air pollution may be more harmful than the air outside because ______.

A team of researchers in California has developed a way to predict what kinds of objects people are looking at by scanning what’s happening in their brains.
When you look at something, your eyes send a signal about that object to your brain. Different regions of the brain process the information your eyes send. Cells in your brain called neurons(神经元) are responsible for this processing.
　　The fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging功能性磁共振造影) brain scans could generally match electrical activity in the brain to the basic shape of a picture that someone was looking at.
　　Like cells anywhere else in your body, active neurons use oxygen. Blood brings oxygen to the neurons, and the more active a neuron is, the more oxygen it will consume. The more active a region of the brain, the more active its neurons, and in turn, the more blood will travel to that region. And by using fMRI, scientists can visualize which parts of the brain receive more oxygen- rich blood--and therefore, which parts are working to process information.
　　An fMRI machine is a device that scans the brain and measures changes in blood flow to the brain. The technology shows researchers how brain activity changes when a person thinks, looks at something, or carries out an activity like speaking or reading. By highlighting the areas of the brain at work when a person looks at different images, fMRI may help scientists determine specific patterns of brain activity associated with different kinds of images.
　　The California researchers tested brain activity by having two volunteers view hundreds of pictures of everyday objects, like people, animals, and fruits. The scientists used an fMRI machine to record the volunteers' brain activity with each photograph they looked at. Different objects caused different regions of the volunteers' brains to light up on the scan, indicating activity. The scientists used this information to build a model to predict how the brain might respond to any image the eyes see.
In a second test, the scientists asked the volunteers to look at 120 new pictures. Like before, their brains were scanned every time they looked at a new image. This time, the scientists used their model to match the fMRI scans to the image. For example, if a scan in the second test showed the same pattern of brain activity that was strongly, related to pictures of apples in the first test, their model would have predicted the volunteers were looking at apples.
　　 51. What is responsible for processing the information sent by your eyes?
　　A A small region of the brain.
　　B The central part of the brain.
　　C Neurons in the brain.
　　D Oxygen-rich blood.
　　52. Which of the following statements is NOT meant by the writer?
　　A Cells in your brain are called neurons.
　　B The more oxygen a neuron consumes, the more blood it needs.
　　C fMRI helps scientists to discover which parts of the brain process information.
　　D fMRI helps scientists to discover how the brain develops intelligently.
53. "Highlighting the areas of the brain at work" means
　　A "marking the parts of the brain that are processing information"
　　B "giving light to the parts of the brain that are processing information"
　　C "putting the parts of the brain to work"
　　D "stopping the parts of the brain from working"
　　54. What did the researchers experiment on?
　　A Animals, objects, and fruits.
　　B Two volunteers.
　　C fMRI machines.
　　D Thousands of pictures.
55.What is the best title for the passage?
A Mind-reading Machine
B A Technological Dream
C Device that can Help You Calculate
D The Recent Development in Science and Technology

　　For years scientists have been worried about the effects of air pollution on the earth’s natural conditions. Some believe the air inside many houses may be more dangerous than the air outside. It may be one hundred times worse.

　　Indoor air pollution can cause a person to feel tired, to suffer eye-pain, headache and other problems. Some pollutants（ 污染 物） can cause breathing disorders, diseases of blood and even cancer, Most scientists agree that every modern house has some kind of indoor pollution. People began to notice the problem in the early 1970s. It is that when builders began making houses and offices they did not waste energy. To do this they built buildings that limited the flow of air between inside and outside. They also began using manmade building materials. These materials are now known to let out harmful gases. As the problem became more serious, scientists began searching for a way to deal with it. They discovered a natural pollution control system for building— green plants. Scientists do not really know how plants control air pollution. They believe that a plant’s leaves absorb or take in the pollutants. In exchange the plant lets out oxygen through its leaves and through its tiny organizations on its roots. Scientists suggest that all buildings should have one large plant or several small plants inside for every nine square metres of space. Studies of different plants show that each absorbs different chemicals. So the most effective way to clean the air is to use different kinds of plants. Having green plants inside your house can make it a prettier and more healthy place.

　　Generally speaking, indoor air pollution may be more harmful than the air outside because ________.

　　A. the man - made building materials let out dangerous gases inside houses

　　B. there may be more harmful gases outside houses

　　C. the flow of air indoors is limited

　　D. indoor air pollution can make a person seriously ill

　　The most effective way to clean the air is to use different kinds of plants because________.

　　A. they may let out more oxygen which people need

　　B. they can absorb different kinds of the harmful indoor chemicals

　　C. they can take in all kinds of indoor pollutants

        D. they can make your house prettier and more healthy

根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

________. He had more money than he could ever spend,　and　he was admired and looked up to by his community._____ _____ .He was not happy. All his life he had been pursuing happiness and struggling for happiness, but he had never been able to find it.

Then one day he heard about a hidden temple in Nepal that had a special room that contained the secret of happiness.____ ___ .After many years searching and countless hardships he arrived there. He was tired and penniless, but he knew that none of that mattered now because he had found the temple. He asked a wise, smiling monk(和尚)if he could enter the special room. The monk agreed and showed him to the stairs leading to the room.____ __ .He stared into the room with sunlight streaming through the window and saw what he had come so far to find. There hanging on the wall was the secret of happiness. The man looked at his reflection in the mirror and laughed.

____ .Happiness is a choice that we can make. Don’t spend the rest of your life searching the world for happiness then. Just look at the mirror and laugh. Let the happiness flow from your heart, mind, and soul until it fills your life and the lives of all around you.

A. He immediately sold all that he owned and set out to find this hidden temple.

B. The man found the secret of happiness at last.

C. But he knew that something was missing in his life.

D. He climbed them with legs shaking with expectation and slowly opened the door.

E. There was once a very wealthy and successful man.

F. It is time we all realized that we were the secret of our own happiness.

G. It was difficult to find the temple in Nepal.