You are at the check-out a grocery store. You are ready to pay for your food. Then you find out that you have left your wallet at home! What can you do?

Don’t worry. You just have to put your finger near a special scanner. The grocery bill will be taken out of your bank account.

We are not joking.

A new system that scans customers’ fingerprints and subtracts（除去）the grocery bill from their bank accounts has taken supermarkets in Germany by storm. Stores, school canteens and even bars are picking it up.

The Edeka supermarket chain is the first retail（零售）business in Germany to use to new system. “Almost a quarter of out customers pay with their fingers,” said an employee at the headquarters.

Edeka has tried the system at 70 of its supermarkets. It says it will introduce it at 200 others because customers like it.

“At first we thought that only the young who really keep up with the latest technology would be interested, but we were wrong,” said Stefan Sewoester from IT Werke.

“Almost two-thirds of the people who use the system are 40 and older,” he said.

IT Werke, a computer company, is one of the pioneers of fingerprint payment software in Germany. It has helped about 150 shops, canteens and bars to put in the fingerprint scanning machines. Each cost about 2,000 euros(20,000 yuan).

To sign up for the service, customers must have their fingerprints taken and leave their addresses and banking details with the shop. The shop then takes the cost of goods directly out of the customer’s bank account.

“It is especially a good thing for elderly people. Now they do not have to remember their pin(密码)to pay with their bank cards, or to look around for their glasses or cash”. Sewoester said.

The stores benefits from the system too. It saves more than time in the check-out line. It also cuts out the hidden costs of accepting electronic card payments.

1．Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?

       A．Pay with finger.                                   B．Fingerprint scanning.

       C．Money is not needed!                           D．A new system.

2．How is the bill paid when people are paying their bill with their fingerprint?

       A．The money will be taken directly from the customer’s bank account.

      B．The customer must pay the money and confirm it with their fingerprint.

      C．The money is to be paid through electronic card payment.

      D．The bill will be posted to the customer’s home.

3．Which of the following has most likely had the scanner fitted?

   A．The restaurant.                                    B．The hotel.

   C．The school dining-hall.                         D．The hospital.

4．Which is NOT an advantage of the new invention so far?

      A．Customers don’t have to pay their bill with money wherever they go.

      B．Customers don’t have to remember their pin number.

      C．Stores can save a certain amount of money.

      D．Time will be saved.

5．The writer of the text seems to            .

      A．think that the new scanning machine does good only to customers

      B．hold a neutral attitude toward this scanner

      C．expect that the new invention will soon spread around

       D．believe that middle-aged people are more ready to accept new things

You are at the check-out of a grocery store. You are ready to pay for your food. Then you find out that you have left your wallet at home!  What can you do?

Don’t worry. You just have to put your finger near a special scanner. The grocery bill will be taken out of your bank account．

  We are not joking.

A new system that scans customers’ fingerprints and subtracts（除去）the grocery bill from their bank accounts has taken supermarkets in Germany by storm. Stores, school canteens and even bars are picking it up.

The Edeka supermarket chain is the first retail（零售）business in Germany to use the new

system. “Almost a quarter of our customers pay with their fingers,” said an employee at the headquarters.

    Edeka has tried the system at 70 of its supermarkets．It says it will introduce it at 200 others because customers like it

   “At first we thought that only the young who really keep up with the latest technology would be interested，but we were wrong, ”said Stenfan Sewoester from IT Work.

  “Almost two-thirds of the people who use the system are 40 and older.” he said．

   IT Worker, a computer company, is one of the pioneers of fingerprint payment software in Germany. It has helped about 150shops, canteens and bars to put in the fingerprint scanning machines. Each cost about 2.000 euros（20.000yuan）．

To sign up for the service，customers must have their fingerprints taken and leave her    addresses and banking details with the shop．The shop then takes the cost of goods directly out of the customer’s bank account．   

  “It is especially a good thing for elderly people. Now they do not have to remember their pin（密码）to pay with their bank cards，or to look around for their glasses cash.” Sewoester said．   

The stores benefits from the system too. It saves more than time in the check-out line. It also cuts out the hidden costs of accepting electronic card payments.

1．Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?

   A．A New System                B．Fingerprint Scanning

   C．Money is Not Needed!          D．Pay with Finger

2．How is the bill paid when people are paying their bill with their fingerprint?

   A．The bill will be posted to the customer’s home．

B．The money will he taken directly from the customer’s bank account.

   C．The money is to be paid through electronic card payment．

   D．The customer must pay the money and confirm it with their fingerprint．

3．Which is NOT an advantage of the new invention so far?

   A．Time will be saved.

   B．Customers don’t have to remember their pin number．

   C．Stores can save a certain amount of money．

 D．Customers don’t have to pay their bill with money wherever they go.

4．The writer of the text seems to            ．

   A．hold a neutral attitude toward this scanner

   B．think that the new scanning machine does good only to customers

C．expect that it will soon spread around

   D．believe that middle—aged people are more likely to accept new things

These days we are all conditioned to accept newness, whatever it costs. Very soon, there is no doubt that Apple's tablet (平板电脑) will seem as a vital tool of modern living to us as sewing machine did to our grandparents. At least, it will until someone produces an even smarter, thinner and more essential tablet, which, if recent history is any guide, will be in approximately six months' time. Turn your back for a moment and you find that every electronic item in your possession is as old as a tombstone. Why should you care if people laugh just because you use an old mobile phone? But try getting the thing repaired when it goes wrong. It's like walking into a pub and asking for an orange juice. You will be made to feel like some sort of time-traveler from the 1970s. "Why not buy a new one?" you will get asked.
And so the mountain of electrical rubbish grows. An average British person was believed to get rid of quite a number of electronic goods in a lifetime. They weighed three tons, stood 7 feet high, and included five fridges, six microwaves, seven PCs, six TVs, 12 kettles, 35 mobile phones and so on. Even then, the calculation seemed to be conservative. Only 35 mobiles in a lifetime? The huge number of electronic items now regularly thrown away by British families is clearly one big problem. But this has other consequences. It contributes greatly to the uneasy feeling that modem technology is going by faster than we can keep up. By the time I've learnt how to use a tool it's already broken or lost. I've lost count of the number of TV remote-controls that I've bought, mislaid and replaced without working out what most of the buttons did.
And the technology changes so unbelievably fast. It was less than years ago that I spotted an energetic businessman friend pulling what seemed to be either a large container or a small nuclear bomb on wheels through a railway station. I asked. "What have you got in there? Your money or your wife?" "Neither," he replied, with the satisfied look of a man who knew he was keeping pace with the latest technology, no matter how ridiculous he looked. "This is what everyone will have soon—even you. It's called a mobile telephone."
I don't feel sorry for the pace of change. On the contrary, I'm amazed by those high-tech designers who can somehow fit a camera, music-player, computer and phone into a plastic box no bigger than a packet of cigarette. If those geniuses could also find a way to keep the underground trains running on the first snowy day of winter, they would be making real progress for human beings. What I do regret, however, is that so many household items fall behind so soon. My parents bought a wooden wireless radio in 1947, the year they were married. In 1973, the year I went to university, it was still working. It sat in the kitchen like an old friend—which, in a way, it was. It certainly spoke to us more than we spoke to each other on some mornings. When my mum replaced it with a new-style radio that could also play cassette-tapes, I felt a real sense of loss.
Such is the over-excited change of 21st-century technology that there's no time to satisfy our emotional needs. Even if Apple's new products turn out to be the most significant tablets I very much doubt if they will resist this trend.
【小题1】When you try getting an old mobile phone repaired, ____.

These days we are all conditioned to accept newness, whatever it costs. Very soon, there is no doubt that Apple's tablet (平板电脑) will seem as a vital tool of modern living to us as sewing machine did to our grandparents. At least, it will until someone produces an even smarter, thinner and more essential tablet, which, if recent history is any guide, will be in approximately six months' time. Turn your back for a moment and you find that every electronic item in your possession is as old as a tombstone. Why should you care if people laugh just because you use an old mobile phone? But try getting the thing repaired when it goes wrong. It's like walking into a pub and asking for an orange juice. You will be made to feel like some sort of time-traveler from the 1970s. "Why not buy a new one?" you will get asked.

And so the mountain of electrical rubbish grows. An average British person was believed to get rid of quite a number of electronic goods in a lifetime. They weighed three tons, stood 7 feet high, and included five fridges, six microwaves, seven PCs, six TVs, 12 kettles, 35 mobile phones and so on. Even then, the calculation seemed to be conservative. Only 35 mobiles in a lifetime? The huge number of electronic items now regularly thrown away by British families is clearly one big problem. But this has other consequences. It contributes greatly to the uneasy feeling that modem technology is going by faster than we can keep up. By the time I've learnt how to use a tool it's already broken or lost. I've lost count of the number of TV remote-controls that I've bought, mislaid and replaced without working out what most of the buttons did.

And the technology changes so unbelievably fast. It was less than years ago that I spotted an energetic businessman friend pulling what seemed to be either a large container or a small nuclear bomb on wheels through a railway station. I asked. "What have you got in there? Your money or your wife?" "Neither," he replied, with the satisfied look of a man who knew he was keeping pace with the latest technology, no matter how ridiculous he looked. "This is what everyone will have soon—even you. It's called a mobile telephone."

I don't feel sorry for the pace of change. On the contrary, I'm amazed by those high-tech designers who can somehow fit a camera, music-player, computer and phone into a plastic box no bigger than a packet of cigarette. If those geniuses could also find a way to keep the underground trains running on the first snowy day of winter, they would be making real progress for human beings. What I do regret, however, is that so many household items fall behind so soon. My parents bought a wooden wireless radio in 1947, the year they were married. In 1973, the year I went to university, it was still working. It sat in the kitchen like an old friend—which, in a way, it was. It certainly spoke to us more than we spoke to each other on some mornings. When my mum replaced it with a new-style radio that could also play cassette-tapes, I felt a real sense of loss.

Such is the over-excited change of 21st-century technology that there's no time to satisfy our emotional needs. Even if Apple's new products turn out to be the most significant tablets I very much doubt if they will resist this trend.

1.When you try getting an old mobile phone repaired, ____.

A. you are travelling through time            B. you are thought to be out of date

C. you will find everything wrong            D. you have got to buy a new one

2.Throwing away so much electronic rubbish makes the writer feel quite _____.

A. lost and upset    B. unbelievably fast

C. broken or lost     D. regularly wasteful

3.The example of the businessman implies that____.

A. the businessman mastered the latest technology   

B. mobile phones used to be quite big just years ago

C. the businessman was a very ridiculous person     

D. the writer failed to follow modern technology

4.The passage is organized in the pattern of ____.

A. time and events    B. comparison and contrast   

C. cause and effect      D. examples and analysis

5.Which of the following is conveyed in the passage?

A. The fast pace of change brings us no good.     

B. We have to keep up with new technology.

C. Household items should be upgraded quickly.   

D. We should hold on for new technology to last.

These days we are all conditioned to accept newness, whatever it costs. Very soon, there is no doubt that Apple's tablet (平板电脑) will seem as a vital tool of modern living to us as sewing machine did to our grandparents. At least, it will until someone produces an even smarter, thinner and more essential tablet, which, if recent history is any guide, will be in approximately six months' time. Turn your back for a moment and you find that every electronic item in your possession is as old as a tombstone. Why should you care if people laugh just because you use an old mobile phone? But try getting the thing repaired when it goes wrong. It's like walking into a pub and asking for an orange juice. You will be made to feel like some sort of time-traveler from the 1970s. "Why not buy a new one?" you will get asked.
And so the mountain of electrical rubbish grows. An average British person was believed to get rid of quite a number of electronic goods in a lifetime. They weighed three tons, stood 7 feet high, and included five fridges, six microwaves, seven PCs, six TVs, 12 kettles, 35 mobile phones and so on. Even then, the calculation seemed to be conservative. Only 35 mobiles in a lifetime? The huge number of electronic items now regularly thrown away by British families is clearly one big problem. But this has other consequences. It contributes greatly to the uneasy feeling that modem technology is going by faster than we can keep up. By the time I've learnt how to use a tool it's already broken or lost. I've lost count of the number of TV remote-controls that I've bought, mislaid and replaced without working out what most of the buttons did.
And the technology changes so unbelievably fast. It was less than years ago that I spotted an energetic businessman friend pulling what seemed to be either a large container or a small nuclear bomb on wheels through a railway station. I asked. "What have you got in there? Your money or your wife?" "Neither," he replied, with the satisfied look of a man who knew he was keeping pace with the latest technology, no matter how ridiculous he looked. "This is what everyone will have soon—even you. It's called a mobile telephone."
I don't feel sorry for the pace of change. On the contrary, I'm amazed by those high-tech designers who can somehow fit a camera, music-player, computer and phone into a plastic box no bigger than a packet of cigarette. If those geniuses could also find a way to keep the underground trains running on the first snowy day of winter, they would be making real progress for human beings. What I do regret, however, is that so many household items fall behind so soon. My parents bought a wooden wireless radio in 1947, the year they were married. In 1973, the year I went to university, it was still working. It sat in the kitchen like an old friend—which, in a way, it was. It certainly spoke to us more than we spoke to each other on some mornings. When my mum replaced it with a new-style radio that could also play cassette-tapes, I felt a real sense of loss.
Such is the over-excited change of 21st-century technology that there's no time to satisfy our emotional needs. Even if Apple's new products turn out to be the most significant tablets I very much doubt if they will resist this trend.

1. 1.

   When you try getting an old mobile phone repaired, ____.

   1. A.
      you are travelling through time
   2. B.
      you are thought to be out of date
   3. C.
      you will find everything wrong
   4. D.
      you have got to buy a new one
2. 2.

   Throwing away so much electronic rubbish makes the writer feel quite _____.

   1. A.
      lost and upset
   2. B.
      unbelievably fast
   3. C.
      broken or lost
   4. D.
      regularly wasteful
3. 3.

   The example of the businessman implies that____.

   1. A.
      the businessman mastered the latest technology
   2. B.
      mobile phones used to be quite big just years ago
   3. C.
      the businessman was a very ridiculous person
   4. D.
      the writer failed to follow modern technology
4. 4.

   The passage is organized in the pattern of ____.

   1. A.
      time and events
   2. B.
      comparison and contrast
   3. C.
      cause and effect
   4. D.
      examples and analysis
5. 5.

   Which of the following is conveyed in the passage?

   1. A.
      The fast pace of change brings us no good.
   2. B.
      We have to keep up with new technology.
   3. C.
      Household items should be upgraded quickly.
   4. D.
      We should hold on for new technology to last.