81. What do the underlined words “chrome-plate contraptions” in Paragraph 1 refer to?(No more than 3 words)

70. The text is most probably a ________.

A. science news report　 B. book review

C. newspaper ad　　 D. science fiction story

PART FOUR　 WRITING (45%)

　 SECTION A (10%)

　 　Directions: Read the following passage. Complete the diagram by using the information from the passage.

　 Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

Most scientists are now certain that global warming is taking place. Gases such as carbon dioxide produced by burning of coal, oil, wood, together with industrial pollution, are creating a warm blanket around the earth. This blanket is trapping heat in the atmosphere and so raising the temperature of the earth.

The evidence for global warming can now be seen in the world’s changing climate statistics. In Europe, eight of the last ten years have seen record high temperature. For northern Europe, this has generally been a change for the better. Gardens can now even grow tropical plants in England, though London may never see a “White Christmas” again. On the other hand, the countries around the Mediterranean Sea, and those south of the Sahara desert are receiving even less rain than before. In sub-Saharan Africa the crops are drying out in the fields and people are dying of starvation. In the Americans, the climate is becoming more extreme-the summers are getting hotter and the storms are becoming more violent. In 1999 the southern United States was struck by a series of destructive hurricanes, while the end of 1999 saw the worst floods ever in Venezuela. Meteorologists expect such trends to continue, and indeed to worsen, if global warming cannot be stopped.

In addition to worrying about rising global temperatures and more extreme weather conditions, scientists are closely monitoring sea levels around the world. These are slowly rising, as the northern and southern polar ice-caps start to melt. This will have serious consequences for low-lying countries near the sea, such as the coral islands in the Pacific, and Bangladesh where the River Ganges already floods the delta(三角洲) every year. Already parts of these places are disappearing under the rising tides.

　Title: 71._______________.

SECTION B (10%)

　　 Directions: Read the following passage. Answer the questions according to the information given in the passage and the required words limit. Write your answers on your answer sheet.

Almost everybody in America will spend a part of his or her life behind a shopping cart(购物手推车). They will, in a lifetime, push the chrome-plated contraptions many miles. But few will know-or even think to ask-who it was that invented them.

Sylvan N. Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. At that time he was in the supermarket business. Every day he would see shoppers lugging(吃力地携带) groceries around in baskets they had to carry.

One day Goldman suddenly had the idea of putting baskets on wheels. The wheeled baskets would make shopping much easier for his customers, and would help to attract more business.

On June 4, 1937, Goldman’s first carts were ready for use in his market. He was terribly excited on the morning of that day as customers began arriving. He couldn’t wait to see them using his invention.

But Goldman was disappointed. Most shoppers gave the carts a long look, but hardly anybody would give them a try.

After a while, Goldman decided to ask customers why they weren’t using his carts. “Don’t you think this arm is strong enough to carry a shopping basket?” one shopper replied.

But Goldman wasn’t beaten yet. He knew his carts would be a great success if only he could persuade people to give them a try. To this end, Goldman hired a group of people to push carts around his market and pretend they were shopping! Seeing this, the real customers gradually began copying the phony(假冒的) customers.

As Goldman had hoped, the carts were soon attracting larger and larger numbers of customers to his market. But not only did more people come-those who came bought more. With larger, easier-to-handle baskets, customers unconsciously bought a greater number of items than before.

Today’s shopping carts are five times larger than Goldman’s original model. Perhaps that’s one reason Americans today spend more than five times as much money on food each year as they did before 1937-before the coming of the shopping cart.

69. According to Jae Kwon, his nuclear battery _______.

A. uses a solid semiconductor

B. will soon replace the present ones.

C. could be extremely thin

D. has passed the final test.

68. Liquid semiconductor is used to _________.

A. get rid of the radioactive waste

B. test the power of nuclear batteries.

C. decrease the size of nuclear batteries

D. reduce the damage to lattice structure.

67. Jae Kwon gave examples in Paragraph 4_________.

A. to show chemical batteries are widely applied.

B. to introduce nuclear batteries can be safely used.

C. to describe a nuclear-powered system.

D. to introduce various energy sources.

66. Which of the following is true of Jae Kwon?

A. He teaches chemistry at MU.

B. He developed a chemical battery.

C. He is working on a nuclear energy source.

D. He made a breakthrough in computer engineering.

65. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

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.

C

Batteries can power anything from small sensors to large systems. While scientists are finding ways to make them smaller but even more powerful, problems can arise when these batteries are much larger and heavier than the devices themselves. University of Missouri(MU) researchers are developing a nuclear energy source that is smaller, lighter and more efficient.

“To provide enough power, we need certain methods with high energy density(密度)”，said Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU. “The radioisotope(放射性同位素) battery can provide power density that is much higher than chemical batteries.”

Kwon and his research team have been working on building a small nuclear battery, presently the size and thickness of a penny, intended to power various micro / nanoelectromechanical systems (M/NEMS). Although nuclear batteries can cause concerns, Kwon said they are safe.

“People hear the word ‘nuclear’ and think of something very dangerous,” he said, “However, nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pace-makers, space satellites and underwater systems.”

His new idea is not only in the battery’s size, but also in its semiconductor(半导体). Kwon’s battery uses a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor.

“The key part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure(晶体结构) of the solid semiconductor,” Kwon said, “By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem.”

Together with J. David Robertson, chemistry professor and associate director of the MU Research Reactor, Kwon is working to build and test the battery. In the future, they hope to increase the battery’s power, shrink its size and try with various other materials. Kwon said that battery could be thinner than the thickness of human hair.

64. What can be inferred from Paragraph 4?

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.

63. According to the text, 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

62. The author uses figures in Paragraph 2 to show _______.

A. the tendency of cutting household waste

B. the increase of packaging recycling

C. the rapid growth of super markets

D. the fact of packaging overuse