People cannot reach an agreement on the use of science and technology. For example, will radiation from electronic equipment destroy the environment? Should medical scientists change gene structures to prevent genetic disease or to create “more perfect” human beings? While people are arguing about these and others, technology continues to influence our everyday lives—the home, health and education, entertainment and communication, and so on.
Some people carry on active social lives with computers —their own or the ones in public places like cafes, social centers, libraries, and so on. Communicating with others in chat rooms,  computer users can get to know people they might never meet in traditional ways. With live online video connections, two people with cameras in their computers can see and talk to each other from separate places.
With modern telephone technology, most people stopped writing lettters—especially personal letters and notes. But now, writing to communicate has returned in electronic form, or e-mail, which is a way of sending messages from one computer to another. For some computer users, the wish to communicate intelligently or creatively with others makes them want to write better.
Computer technology has also made it possible to run a house electronically. From turning lights on and off to starting the coffee and cooking the hot meal, computers are taking care of people at home. Many modern machines have computer chips that allow their owners to program them. For instance, you can “instruct” a microwave oven how to cook a dish. Most entertainment equipment operates with computer technology too. Computers can even start cars automatically so that on cold winter mornings you can get into a warmed-up vehicle and drive off.
Although much of the technology in our everyday lives has good effects, there are some uses that raise questions. For example, are interactive media ( i.e., a combination of television, telephone, and computer) going to control minds, cause people to forget about family life and personal relationships? What effects will the genentic engineering of food have on people’s health? High-tech medical treatments can make a person live a much longer life, but can they improve the health and happiness of human beings? Only time will tell, but, in the meantime, science and technology will continue to move forward. 
【小题1】 What does the underlined word “ chips” mean?

根据所给的首字母、中文或英文完成句子，使得句子通顺合理，注意形式的变化。
【小题1】This hospital is one of the oldest __________ (build) in the city.
【小题2】Five students failed the exam, i___________ Jason and Mike.
【小题3】Tim _________(花) 30yuan for the shoes this morning.
【小题4】He saw a terrible ___________(事故) on his way to work.
【小题5】His unusual words __________(使……吃惊) me so much.
【小题6】That was an ____________ (pleasant) job so nobody wants to do it.
【小题7】More and more people use Mobile phones to send _________(短信) to their friends instead of calling them up.
【小题8】My _____________(经历) as a volunteer helps me to learn a lot.
【小题9】All of them know Liu Xiang e___________ you and me.
【小题10】I a_________ with my friend yesterday so that we didn’t talk to each other.

Animals, including insects, don’t have a ‘language’ like ours. They do not ‘talk’ to each other in words and sentences. But if we watch them, we can see that they do have their ways of communicating (交流) with each other.
Can you see the rabbit’s tail? When rabbits see this white tail moving up and down, they run away. They know that they are in danger. The rabbit has told them something without making a sound. It has given them a signal.
Many other animals use this kind of ‘language’. When a cobra（眼镜蛇）is angry, it raises its head and makes itself look powerful（有力的）. This warns other animals. When a bee（蜜蜂）has found food, it goes back to its home. It cannot ‘tell’ the other bees where the food is by speaking to them, but it does a little dance. This tells the bees where the food is.
Some animals ‘say’ things by making sounds. A dog barks, for example, when a stranger comes near. A cat purrs when it is pleased. Some birds make several different sounds, each with its own meaning. Sometimes we human beings speak in the same way. We make sounds like “Oh” or “Ah” when we are frightened or pleased or when we drop something on our toes.
【小题1】Which one is TRUE according to the passage?

People cannot reach an agreement on the use of science and technology. For example, will radiation from electronic equipment destroy the environment? Should medical scientists change gene structures to prevent genetic disease or to create “more perfect” human beings? While people are arguing about these and others, technology continues to influence our everyday lives—the home, health and education, entertainment and communication, and so on.

   Some people carry on active social lives with computers —their own or the ones in public places like cafes, social centers, libraries, and so on. Communicating with others in chat rooms,  computer users can get to know people they might never meet in traditional ways. With live online video connections, two people with cameras in their computers can see and talk to each other from separate places.

   With modern telephone technology, most people stopped writing lettters—especially personal letters and notes. But now, writing to communicate has returned in electronic form, or e-mail, which is a way of sending messages from one computer to another. For some computer users, the wish to communicate intelligently or creatively with others makes them want to write better.

   Computer technology has also made it possible to run a house electronically. From turning lights on and off to starting the coffee and cooking the hot meal, computers are taking care of people at home. Many modern machines have computer chips that allow their owners to program them. For instance, you can “instruct” a microwave oven how to cook a dish. Most entertainment equipment operates with computer technology too. Computers can even start cars automatically so that on cold winter mornings you can get into a warmed-up vehicle and drive off.

   Although much of the technology in our everyday lives has good effects, there are some uses that raise questions. For example, are interactive media ( i.e., a combination of television, telephone, and computer) going to control minds, cause people to forget about family life and personal relationships? What effects will the genentic engineering of food have on people’s health? High-tech medical treatments can make a person live a much longer life, but can they improve the health and happiness of human beings? Only time will tell, but, in the meantime, science and technology will continue to move forward. 

1.What does the underlined word “ chips” mean?

A. thin pieces of potatoes  B. small holes    C. small pieces of wood   D. central parts

2. We can know from the passage that _________.

   A. technology never stops changing our everyday lives 

   B. with computers each of us can live a comfortable life

   C. people can do more activities with computers

   D. the more you use computers, the better you might write

3. What can we infer from the underlined sentence in the last paragraph?

A. The longer you live, the happier you are.

B. High-tech medical treatments can’t improve our health and happiness.  

C. High-tech medical treatments can’t help us with everything.

D.The writer questioned high-tech medical treatments somehow.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

   A. Science and New Technology        B. Computers Change Our Lives

   C. Everyday Uses of Technology        D. Only Time Will Tell          

When students and parents are asked to grade subjects according to their importance, the arts are usually at the bottom of the list. Music is nice, people seem to say, but not important. Too often it is only viewed as entertainment, but certainly not an education priority（优先）. This view is shortsighted. In fact, music education is very important for all students.
Music tells us who we are. Because music is an expression of the beings who create it, it shows their thinking and values, as well as the social environment it came from. Rock music represents a lifestyle just as surely as does a Schubert song. The jazz influence that George Gershwin and other musicians introduced into their music is obviously American because it came from American musical traditions. Music expresses our character and values. It gives us identity（身份，特性）as a society.
Music provides a kind of perception（感知）that cannot be acquired any other way. Science can explain how the sun rises and sets. The arts can express the emotive（情感的）meaning of the same thing. We need every possible way to discover and respond to our world for one simple but powerful reason: No one way can get it all.
The arts are forms of thought as powerful in what they communicate as mathematical and scientific symbols. They are ways we human beings “talk” to each other. They are the language through which we express our fears, our hungers, our discoveries, our hopes. The arts are ways we give form to our ideas and imagination so that they can be shared with others. When we do not give children an important way of expressing themselves such as music, we take away from them the meanings that music expresses.
Science and technology do not tell us what it means to be human. The arts do. Music is an important way we express human suffering, celebration, the value of peace and love.
So music education is far more necessary than people seem to realize.
【小题1】What can we learn from Paragraph 1?