Our product is very simple. It is powered by a superlight spring,which uses the gravitational (重力的) pull from your body weight and pushes you with superhuman strength. There have been no records of serious injury related to the use of Powerisers, but extreme caution is recommended. We strongly advise the wearing of protective clothing, including at least a helmet (头盔).
Powerisers make you feel as if you were walking on the moon. Now we make two different models: Basic and Professional. The Basic model is designed for the occasional users and costs around$500.The Professional model, which is designed for competitive use, has a strongly-made structure and different springs, though that comes at the increased price of $800. Our Powerisers are guaranteed for 2 years and will be replaced without question if they fail during that period. That is how confident we are.
56. According to the passage, Powerisers can help you ______. A. get on the bus C. relax hard muscles
B. jump over blocks D. lift heavy weights
57. A helmet is recommended to users to ______. A. prevent them from being injured B. provide themwith superhuman strength C. offer them the feeling of walking on the moon D. bring them good results in competitive situations 58. What is the author’s purpose of writing the passage? A. To advertise a sports product. B. To show advantages of taking exercise. C. To explain basic principles of Powerisers. D. To introduce the development of Powerisers.
B
When school started on that warm August day, I threw myself into everything I did, including playing volleyball. I decided to become beautiful, or at the very least, skinny. I stopped eating completely. Soon I began losing weight, which thrilled me, and I even grew to love the tiredness and lightheadedness that came with my poor diet, for those feelings meant that I was winning.
As the season progressed, things had become tense between my head volleyball coach, Coach Smith, and me. She felt that something was wrong with my health. She talked with me about my eating and was angry that I wouldn’t listen to her when she tried to make me eat. She tried to persuade me in a determined way and so we fought constantly. Then my hunger started to affect my performance. I was so tired that practice and games were becoming a struggle. One afternoon, with hurt in her eyes, Coach Smith asked me what I had eaten and I told her nothing yet, but I was going to. She looked at me, disappointment in her eyes, knowing she couldn’t make me stop, and walked away.
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A couple of weeks later I attended a formal dinner for our volleyball team. I stood there as my coach managed to say something nice about me. I realized then that I had ruined my senior year by being disrespectful, and I had probably ruined hers as well. So that evening I wrote her a letter apologizing and thanking her.
Then one Saturday, as I was reading in the library, I felt someone gently take my arm and say softly, “Lynn Jones, how are you doing?” I looked up and saw the familiar face. “Thanks for the letter,” she said. “It meant a lot.”
When I think of a coach, I think of someone above me, someone who gives instruction—not a friend. But Coach Smith is different, and, like any other good friend, she dealt with my problem in a determined way even when I hated her for it at that time. I didn’t deserve her kindness, but she gave it anyway. I will forever be grateful for her help, and now for her friendship. 59. When the author ate a poor diet and had a sense of tiredness, she felt ______. A. stupid
B. proud
C. funny
D. nervous
60. The author fought with Coach Smith because ______. A. she refused to go on a diet B. she caused failure of her team C. she changed the training course D. she kept her idea of losing weight
61. Why did the author write a letter to Coach Smith? A. She felt sorry for eating too little food. B. She decided to improve her performance. C. She was grateful for Smith’s care for her health. D. She wanted to build a close relationship with Smith. 62. What is the best title for the passage? A. Unexpected Friendship B. A Fight with My Coach C. A Strict Volleyball Coach D. My Way of Losing Weight
C
Brilliant Autumn Colors
As trees across the northern areas turn gold and deep red, you can find autumn colors in parks and woodlands, in the cities, countryside, and mountains. People are wondering what these colors are for. For years, scientists have worked to understand the changes that happen to trees in the autumn. Up to now there have been different explanations for why natural selection makes autumn colors so widespread.
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Dr. Hamilton from Oxford University proposed that bright autumn leaves contained a message: they warn insects to leave them alone. In autumn, insects choose trees where they will lay eggs. When the larvae (幼虫) come out the next spring, they feed on the trees, often with a result of destruction of the trees. Dr. Hamilton suggested that trees could ward off these insects with poisons. Theycould have strong defenses by letting egg-laying insects know what was in store for their eggs.
Dr. Hamilton and his students turned the theory into a mathematical model, which showed that warning signals could indeed drive the evolution (进化) of bright leaves. It was a first attempt to see what was out there.
Aresearch teamfrom the University of Wisconsin gave a quite different explanation. “If you are up here in Wisconsin, by the time the leaves change, all the insects that feed on leaves are gone,” Dr. Hoch said. Hebelieved that autumn colors served mainly as protection.
According to Dr. Hoch and his team, autumn colors might be able to protectthe leaves from sun damage or frost (冰冻) injury—in other words, theyactually act as a sunscreen to avoid the destruction to the leaves. Besides, autumn colors might protect the leaves from water loss. If the cells in the leaves become dry,the connections between the cells will be weakenedand the leaves will break off.
Although there are different explanations about autumn colors, it has really given them a deeper concern for this time of year. “People sometimes say that science makes the world less interesting by just explaining things away,” one famous biologist said. “But with autumn leaves, the more you know about them, the more amazed you are.” 63. According to Dr. Hamilton, there is a connection between ______. A. the size of leaves and the survival of insects B. the size of leaves and the behavior of insects C. the color of leaves and the quality of insects D. the color of leaves and the number of insects 64. Dr. Hoch and his team give the explanation that ______. A. climate has an influence on the color of the leaves B. sun damage and frost injury drive the insects away C. the color of autumn leaves has a protective function D. autumn colors bring great destruction to the leaves
65. The underlined phrase “ward off” in Paragraph 2 probably means ______. A. catch
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B. attract C. ignore D. prevent
66. Which of the following shows the organization of the passage? A． CP
B．
CP P 1 Sp 1 P 2 Sp 2 P 1 Sp 2 P 2 Sp 1
C C C．
P 1 CP
P 2 P 3
D． P 1 CP
P 2 Sp 1 Sp 2 Sp 1 Sp 2 C C CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub-point (次要点) C: Conclusion
D
Mean Machines?
“If popular culture has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing harm caused by robots.” Author Daniel Wilson’s description of How to Survive a Robot Uprising seems like it is straight out of a robot disaster movie. “The problem with cleverly-designed robots is that we become dependent on them,” saysWilson.
The classic movie Westworld describes an amusement park where, after a safety error, therobots spend a killing period of time. Yet in reality, statistics show that as technology improves there is a trend towards increased safety. Similarly, public transport systems using computers and machines arebelieved to be more reliable than those in human control,and a robot-assisted operation is more precise and results in fewer medical problems.
But where does the idea of robots being cruel and harmful come from?“Robots were pop culture figures before they existed,” saysWilson.“They were frightening creatures in novels. When robots really started existing, they already had this image (形象) set up not based on reality. That’s exactly whathappened—a movie monster became real.”
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Recent reports talked of a robot “attack” on a worker in Sweden. Even if thesereferences to an attack rather than an error are meant in joke, thisonly makes the problem worse.“We’re so interested in the robot-attack storyline that it can influence the way real robot-safety problems are discussed,” says one journalist. But with robots becoming increasingly advanced,is it going to come a time when an error could become anunkind and cruel attack?
“Robots are just a bunch of metal,” says one engineer.“If you are scared, then youare scared of the people building them.” So what do engineersthink we should be afraid of?Nanotechnology is the science which involves developing and making extremely small but very powerful machines. Someengineers suggest that with these new developments come “severe dangers” if they are used inappropriately. Its theory goes that “the small sizeand rapid potential of nano-built weaponry(武器) will make it difficult to control and hard to keep out of the hands of terrorists.” And this is a view shared by some artificial intelligence experts. “With robots… if it makes an error, you can unplug it and shut it down. But if you have lots of nano-built weapons, which are extremely small, there is no way you can do the same thing.” 67. In the first paragraph, Daniel Wilson ______. A. confirms the existence of robots B. introduces the development of robots C. states that robots are potentially dangerous D. suggests that we should be dependent on robots
68. People have come to think of robots as something bad because ______. A. designers of the first robots spread this idea B. reality shows they are the same as in the movies C. movie audience continue to give this impression D. they were originally described this way in novels
69. The author believes that the report of the robot attack in Sweden ______. A. is intended as a joke B. serves as a serious warning C. presents the technical problem D. expresses sympathy for the worker
70. What are experts afraid of when considering nanotechnology? A. Robots could use it inappropriately. B. It could make robots harder to control. C. It could be more dangerous than robots. D. There’ll be more terrorist attacks because of it.
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