What kind of car will we be driving in 2010? Rather different from the type we know today, with the next 20 years bringing greater change than the past 50．The people who will be designing the models of tomorrow believe that environmental problems may well accelerate the pace of the car’s development. Today they are students on the transport design course at London’s Royal College of Art.

Their vision is of a machine with three wheels instead of four, electrically powered, environmentally clean, and able to drive itself along “intelligent” roads equipped with built-in power supplies. Future cars will pick up their fuel during long journeys from a power source built into the road, or store it in small quantities for travelling in the city.

Instead of today’s seating arrangements—two in front, two or three behind, all facing forward--- the 2010 car will have a versatile interior with adults and children in a family circle.

This view of the future car is based on a much more sophisticated road system, with strips built into motorways to supply power to vehicles passing along them, cars will not need drivers, because computers will provide safe driving control and route finding. All the driver will have to do is say where to go and the computer will do the rest. It will become impossible for cars to crash into one another. The technology already exists for the car to become a true automobile.

71．What kind of car will we be driving in 2010?

A．Three wheeled.                B．Electrically powered.

C．With a versatile seating arrangement   D．All of the above.

72．How long will a volunteer be required to spend?

A．A few hours every day.                B．A couple of hours each day.

C．One or two hours every two weeks.     D．A few days per week.

73．What does the word “versatile” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．having many different kinds of skill

B．easily able to change from one direction to another

C．easily able to change from one kind of activity to another

D．having many different uses

74．In paragraph 4 “with strips built into motorways to supply power to vehicles passing along them” means “there are many ____”.

A．traffic lights to control the speed of future cars

B．street posts to indicate directions for drivers[来源:Zxxk.Com]

C．power sources along the street are able to supply power to automobiles

D．stop marks along the street to stop cars

75．What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Future cars are completely different from the automobiles we know today.

B．The design of future cars will be more sophisticated.

C．Because of the new type of cars, our future environment will become cleaner.

D．The road system will become more sophisticated than it is today.

 

 

Every year, major storms cause many problems around the world. There is nothing people can do to stop these powerful forces of nature. But new techniques are helping scientists to predict how, when, and where big storms will happen. The more exact scientists’ warnings are, the better people can prepare for the storms.

Predictions are improving. “We’re gotten better over the years, especially the last few years,” says Phil Klotzbach, a scientist at an American university. How is a storm formed? Even if scientists know where a storm will happen, winds can suddenly change, carrying the storm to a new direction. “For a hurricane to happen, conditions have to be just right, ” Klotzbach says.

First, the ocean water needs to be warm enough so that it evaporates and rises into the air. As it rises, the vapor（水蒸气）cools and turns back into liquid. This process gives off heat. This produces energy like an engine that causes winds to increase. It drives the formation of a hurricane.

If wind speeds reach 40 miles per hour, the system is called a “tropical storm”, and it gets a name. At 75 miles per hour, it becomes a hurricane.

Hurricanes that hit the US start when a thunderstorm forms off the coast of Africa. Storms also develop over tropical waters in other parts of the world.

On average, 60 or 70 storms form off Africa every year. About 10 of them get names. There are usually about six hurricanes. Two tend to be very big, with winds of 115 miles per hour or higher.

The hurricane season lasts from June to November. Ninety percent of all hurricanes hit in August, September, and October. 

1. According to the passage, hurricanes usually ________.

A. form off the coast of Africa and America

B. travel at 40 miles per hour and get its name

C. cause sea winds to rise and blow over the sea

D. hit parts of the world in summer and autumn

2. The underlined word “evaporates” (in Paragraph 5) probably means “________”.

A. begins to move  B. gets lost    C. becomes hot       D. changes into gas

3. Which of the following about the information of a hurricane is the correct order?

a. The ocean water evaporates and goes into the air.

b. Heat creates energy and causes winds to increase.

c. The vapor cools.

d. The ocean water is warm enough.

e. The vapor changes back into liquid.

f. This course gives out heat.

    A. a, d, e, b, c, f     B. a, b, c, f, d, e  C. d, a, c, e, f, b    D. d, a, b, c, e, f

4. According to the passage, the speed of the biggest two hurricanes reaches ______.

A.115 miles per hour                 B.110 miles per hour

C.75 miles per hour                  D.95 miles per hour

 

In business, there is a speed difference: It's the difference between how important a firms leaders say speed is to their competitive (竞争的) strategy（策略）and how fast the company actually moves. The difference is important regardless of industry and company size .Companies fearful of losing their competitive advantage spend much time and money looking for ways to pick up the speed.

In our study of 343 businesses, the companies that choose to go, go, go to try to gain an edge ended up with lower sales and operating incomes than those that paused at key moments to make sure they were on the right track, What’s more, the firms that “slowed down to speed up “improved their top and bottom lines, averaging 40% higher sales and 52% higher operating incomes over a three-year period.

How did they disobey the laws of business physics, taking more time than competitors yet performing better? They thought differently about what “slower” and “faster” mean. Firms sometimes fail to understand the difference between operation speed (moving quickly )and strategic speed (reducing the time it takes to deliver value ).Simply increasing the speed of production, for example ,may be one way to try to reduce the speed difference .But that often leads to reduced value over time, in the form of lower-quality products and services.

In our study, higher-performing companies with strategic speed always made changes when necessary. They became more open to ideas and discussion. They encouraged new ways of thinking. And they allowed time to look back and learn. By contrast (相比而言), performance suffered at firms that moved fast all the time, paid too much attention to improving efficiency, stuck to tested methods, didn’t develop team spirit among their employees, and had little time thinking about changes.

Strategic speed serves as a kind of leadership. Teams that regularly take time to get things right , rather than plough ahead full bore , are more successful in meeting their business goals . That kind of strategy must come from the top.

1. What does the underlined part “gain an edge ”in Paragraph 2 mean ? 

A. Increase the speed.

B. Get an advantage.

C. Reach the limit.

D. Set a goal.

2.. The underlined part “the laws of business physics” in Paragraph 3 means ___________.  

A. spending more time and performing worse.

B. spending more time and performing better

C. spending less time and performing worse

D. spending less time and performing better

3.What can we learn from the text?  

A. how fast a firm moves depends on how big it is.

B. how competitive a firm is depends on what it produces.

C. Firms guided by strategic speed take time to make necessary changes.

D. Firms guided by operational speed take time to develop necessary team spirit.

4.. Which could be the best title for the text?  

A. Improve quality? Serve better.

B. Deliver value? Plough ahead.

C. Reduce time? Move faster.

D. Need speed? Slow down.

 

It is hard to track the blue whale, the ocean’s largest creature, which has almost been killed off by commercial whaling and is now listed as an endangered species. Attaching radio devices to it is difficult, and visual sightings are too unreliable to give real insight into its behavior.

So biologists were delighted early this year when, with the help of the Navy, they were able to track a particular blue whale for 43 days, monitoring its sounds. This was possible because of the Navy’s formerly top-secret system of underwater listening devices spanning the oceans.

Tracking whales is but one example of an exciting new world just opening to civilian scientists after the cold war as the Navy starts to share and partly uncover its global network of underwater listening system built over the decades to track the ships of potential enemies.

Earth scientists announced at a news conference recently that they had used the system for closely

monitoring a deep-sea volcanic eruption （爆发） for the first time and that they plan similar studies.

Other scientists have proposed to use the network for tracking ocean currents and measuring changes in ocean and global temperatures.

The speed of sound in water is roughly one mile a second—slower than through land but faster than through air. What is most important, different layers of ocean water can act as channels for sounds, focusing them in the same way a stethoscope （听诊器） does when it carries faint noises from a patient’s chest to a doctor’s ear. This focusing is the main reason that even relatively weak sounds in the ocean, especially low-frequency ones, can often travel thousands of miles.

81. The passage is chiefly about ____ .

A. an effort to protect an endangered marine species

B. the civilian use of a military detection system

C. the exposure of a U.S. Navy top-secret weapon

D. a new way to look into the behavior of blue whales

82. The underwater listening system was originally designed ____ .

A. to trace and locate enemy vessels

B. to monitor deep-sea volcanic eruptions

C. to study the movement of ocean currents

D. to replace the global radio communications network

83. The deep-sea listening system makes use of ____ .

A. the sophisticated technology of focusing sounds under water

B. the capability of sound to travel at high speed

C. the unique property of layers of ocean water in transmitting sound

D. low-frequency sounds travelling across different layers of water____

84. It can be inferred from the passage that____.

A. new radio devices should be developed for tracking the endangered blue whales

B. blue whales are no longer endangered with the use of the new listening system

C. opinions differ as to whether civilian scientists should be allowed to use military technology

D. military technology has great potential in civilian use

85. Which of the following is true about the U.S. Navy underwater listening network?

A. It is now partly accessible to civilian scientists.

B. It has been replaced by a more advanced system.

C. It became useless to the military after the cold war.

D. It is indispensable in protecting endangered species.

 

In July 19阅读理解upiter,the largest planet in our solar system,was struck by 21 pieces of a comet (彗星).When the fragments (碎片) landed in the southern part of the giant planet,the explosions were watched by scientists here on earth.But what if our own planet was hit by a comet?

The year is 2094.It has been announced that a comet is heading towards the Earth.Most of it will miss our planet,but two fragments will probably hit the southern part of the Earth.The news has caused panic.

On 17July,a fragment four kilometers wide enters the Earth's atmosphere with a huge explosion.About half of the fragment is destroyed.But the major part survives and hits the South Atlantic at 200 times the speed of sound.The sea boils and an enormous wave is created and spreads.The wall of water rushes towards southern Africa at 800 kilometres an hour.Cities on the African coast are totally destroyed and millions of people are drowned.The wave moves into the Indian Ocean and heads towards Asia.

Millions of people are already dead in the southern part of the Earth,but the north won't escape for long.Tons of broken pieces are thrown into the atmosphere by the explosions.As the sun is hidden by clouds of dust,temperatures around the world fall to almost zero.Crops are ruined.Wars break out as countries fight for food.A year later civilization has collapsed.No more than 10 million people have survived.

Could it really happen?In fact, it has already happened more than once in the history of the Earth.The dinosaurs (恐龙) were on the Earth for over 160 million years.Then 65 million years ago they suddenly disappeared.Many scientists believe

that the Earth was hit by a space fragment.The dinosaurs couldn't survive in the cold climate that followed and they became extinct.Will we meet the same end?

1.Which of the following is NOT TRUE according to the author's description of the disaster in 2094?

A.The whole world becomes extremely cold.

B.All the coastal cities in Africa are destroyed.

C.The whole mankind becomes extinct.

D.The visit of the comet results in wars.

2.Why does the author mention dinosaurs at the end of the passage?

A.Because they could only live in the warm climate.

B.Because they once dominated the earth.

C.Because their extinction indicates future disasters.

D.Because dinosaurs and humans never live in the same age.

3.In writing the passage,the author intends to  _______.

A.give an accurate description of the possible disaster in the future

B.prove that humans will sooner or later be destroyed

C.tell the historical development of the Earth

D.warn of a possible disaster in the future

4.It can be concluded that the passage is most probably part of a(n)________.

A.horror storyB.news reportC.research paperD.article of popular science