Recently, scientists have developed a wireless brainmachine interface that help restore communication to people who can no longer speak by reading brainwaves using electrodes(电极) stuck on their heads. Unfortunately, these have proved very slow, at roughly one word typed per minute, making normal conversations and social interactions virtually impossible.
Scientist Frank Guenther and his colleagues reveal a brainmachine interface that uses electrodes implanted directly into the brain for research into real time speech.
"It should soon be possible for extremely paralysed individuals who are incapable of speaking to produce speech through a laptop computer, " said Guenther.
The scientists worked with a 26-year- old male volunteer who experience near-total paralysis due to a stroke he suffered when he was 16. They implanted an electrode that had two wires into a part of the brain that help plan and execute movements related to speech. The electrode recorded brain signals when the volunteer attempted to talk and the wires spread them across the scalp(头皮)to help drive a speech synthesizer (合成器). The delay between brain activity and sound output was just 50 milliseconds on average, roughly the same with regular speech.
"He was quite excited, particularly on the first few days we used the system, as he got used to its properties, " Guenther recalled." I am sure the work proceeds slowly from his perspective, as it does from ours. Nonetheless, he was very excited about getting real-time audio feedback of his intended speech and happy to work very hard with us throughout the experiments."
"The current system uses data from just two wires. Within a year it will be possible to implant a system with 16 times as many." Guenther said." This will allow us to tap into neurons(神经元)，which in the end means better control over a synthesizer and thus better speech."
【小题1】In the study of Guenther, electrodes are _______.

第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
When I worked in Swaziland, one day we went to an orphanage （孤儿院）．There we found a beautiful little girl named Tanzile．I gave her a sweet and she said something back to me in Si-swati, which the nurse next to me translated, “She wants another one — to give to her little sister．” I said “of course”．When we were going to leave, we passed by Tanzile’s house to say goodbye．To our surprise she seemed to be holding on to that extra sweet I had given her．I remember saying to the nurse “this little darling is clever — she has taken two for herself．”
But the nurse told us, “Tanzile is 7 now．Two years ago her mum and dad both died of AIDS．She was separated from her sister who was three at the time．Tanzile has not laid eyes on her since．But from then on whenever Tanzile receives anything from anyone, including food — she refuses to accept it, unless they give her two．” In fact, in the little mud hut where she lives, we find a pile of old things which she has been collecting to give to her sister one day．
People sometimes look at faces of African children and think that they are somehow different from our kids — that somehow they don’t feel pain or love．But that is not true．Their pain is deep．And so is their love．I can still remember the nurse trying to convince her that “if someone gives you food, you must accept it — even if it is only one piece and not two — for your own health．” And it was so hard for us to keep the tears from our eyes as she shook her head．Her hope and her love was all that she had．It mattered more than anything else．When I returned home that day, I was shocked to find that this was not an isolated story but others in the hospital knew of orphans just like Tanzile — waiting with a little pile of things in their hut, for their lovers who they haven’t seen so long．
I think of that old song — “when we’re hungry, love will keep us alive．”
56．From the passage we can learn Tanzile       ．
A．is very clever                         B．knows her sister has died
C．has stored a lot for her sister          D．doesn’t like sweets
57．How old was her sister when the author met with Tanzile?
A．Three years old．          B．Four years old．
C．Five years old．            D．Six years old．
58．What has the author learned from her experience in Africa?
A．Love is more important in life than anything else．
B．African children are different in a way．
C．African children should be treated fairly．
D．We should express our love in time．
59．The best title for the passage would be        ．
A．Give every child two sweets       B．Tanzile’s love for her sister
C．One for my sister              D．Change your attitude to African children

Imagine living locked inside a closet.You can’t choose when and what to eat or how you will spend your time.You can’t even decide when the lights go on and off. Think about spending your whole life like this.
This is the life of lab animals.
Now consider the needs of these animals.Chimpanzees(黑猩猩),in their natural homes,are never separated from their families.They spend hours together every day.But in a lab,chimpanzees are put in cages alone.There are no families,only cold,hard cages,and loneliness that goes on for so many years that most of them lose their minds at last.
Worse yet are the experiments.Animals are given diseases they would never normally get.Experimenters force-feed(给……强行喂食) chemicals to them,conduct repeated surgeries(手术),and much more,Think of what it would be like to put up with these and then be thrown back into a cage,usually without any painkillers.Often animals see other animals being killed right in front of them.
Hundreds of thousands of animals are poisoned,blinded,and killed every year in product tests for shampoos,skin creams and new cancer drugs.Although more than 500 companies have stopped testing on animals,some of them still force chemicals into monkeys’ stomachs and rabbits’ eyes.
Although some facilities are better than others at caring for animals—not every lab worker kills a mouse by cutting off its head with scissors—there are no happy animals inside laboratories.Will the lab life end? When will it end?
【小题1】The passage mainly tells us about       .

In 1993, New York State ordered stores to charge money on beverage (饮料) containers. Within a year, consumers had returned millions of aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles. Plenty of companies were eager to accept the aluminum and glass as raw material for new products, but because few could figure out what to do with the plastic, much of it wound end up buried in landfills (垃圾填埋场). The problem was not limited to New York. Unfortunately, there were too few uses for second-hand plastic.

Today, one out of five plastic soda bottles is recycled in the United States. The reason for the change is that now there are dozens of companies across the country buying discarded (被丢弃的) plastic soda bottles and turning them into fence post, paint brushes, etc.

As the New York experience shows, recycling involves more than simply separating valuable materials from the rest of the rubbish. A discard remains a discard until somebody figures out how to give it a second life — and until economic arrangements exist to give that second life value. Without enough markets to take in materials collected for recycling, throwaways actually reduce prices for used materials.

Fewer landfill space and rising costs for burying and burning rubbish are forcing local governments to look more closely at recycling. In many areas, the East Coast especially, recycling is already the least expensive waste-management choice. For every ton of waste recycled, a city avoids paying for its disposal (清除，处理), which, in parts of New York, amounts to savings of more than $100 per ton. Recycling also stimulates the local economy by creating jobs and reduces the pollution control and energy costs of industries that make recycled products by giving them a better raw material.

What regulation was issued by New York State concerning beverage containers?

A. A fee should be charged on used containers for recycling.

B. Throwaways should be collected by the state for recycling.

C. Consumers had to pay for beverage containers and could get their money back on returning them.

D. Beverage companies should be responsible for collecting and reusing discarded plastic soda bottles.

The returned plastic bottles in New York used to         .

A.    be turned into raw materials

B.    be separated from other rubbish

C.    have a second-life value

D.    end up somewhere underground

The key problem in dealing with returned plastic beverage containers is         .

A.    how to reduce their recycling costs

B.    to sell them at a profitable price

C.    how to turn them into useful things

D.    to lower the prices for used materials

Recycling has become the first choice for the disposal of rubbish because         .

A.    recycling causes little pollution

B.    other methods are more expensive

C.    recycling has great appeal for the jobless

D.    local governments find it easy to manage

It can be concluded from the passage that         .

A.    recycling is to be suggested both economically and environmentally

B.    local governments in the U. S. can expect big profits from recycling

C.    rubbish is a potential remedy for the shortage of raw materials

D.    landfills will still be widely used for waste disposal

World Wrestling Entertainment is the largest professional wrestling organization in North America. It was called World Wrestling Federation until it changed its name because of a legal dispute. Its more than one hundred wrestlers fight each other in competitive matches that are written and practiced before they are performed.
Professional wrestlers are athletes but act as entertainers. They are not seeking athletic records, but instead want to excite an audience. To do this, they use unusual names and wear special clothing during wrestling matches. These wrestlers include the Stone Cold Stunner and the Undertaker.
Most professional wrestling matches are between two men or two women. They fight inside an area called a ring that is separated from the audience by ropes. Each match continues until one wrestler forces the other's shoulders to the floor and holds them there for a count of three. Most World Wrestling Entertainment matches continue for only about four to seven minutes.
An organization official called a promoter decides before the match who will win. But who wins and who loses is not the important thing in professional wrestling. The important thing is that the audience enjoys the pretend fight. Some wrestlers rarely win, but continue to be popular.
Not all wrestling matches are between two people. Some are called tag team matches and involve teams of two, three or four wrestlers. Another kind of match is called a battle royal. It involves thirty to sixty wrestlers competing against each other. A wrestler loses when he or she is thrown out of the ring. The winner is the last wrestler still standing.
【小题1】Why did World Wrestling Federation change its name?