I can’t swim because I have a strong fear of water. Look back 1. ________

　　my childhood experiences, I think that three reasons might          2. ________

　　explain the fear. The first reason is that I was not allow to go       3. ________

　　near the water when I was a child, for my mother had a            4. ________

　　unreasonable fear of it. So, even as a child that I was taught to     5. ________

　　see the water as something danger. Second, my eyes               6. ________

　　became bad when I was five. If I took off my glass in the           7. ________

　　water, I couldn’t see anything, or this increased my fear.           8. ________

　　The worst part of my experience is that as a child I saw            9. ________

　　a neighbor drowned. After then I have been more frightened.      10. ________

The next time you try for a high-ranking post, you could let your possible boss listen to a recommending(推荐) phone call “made” by US President George W. Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Of course, neither of them could really do that for you--- you could just “borrow” their voices. AT&T labs will start selling speech software that, it says, is so good at reproducing the sounds of a human voice that it can recreate voices and even bring the voices of long-dead famous people back to life.

The software, which turns printed text into speech, makes it possible for a company to use recording of a person’s voice to say things that the person never actually said.

Possible customers for the software, which is priced in the thousands of dollars, include telephone call centers, companies that make software that automated(使…自动化) digital files voice devices. The advances raise severe problems. Who, for example, owns the rights to a famous person’s voice? Some experts even believe new contracts will be drawn that include voice-licensing clauses(条款).

And although scientists say the technology is not yet good enough to commit fraud(打假), would the synthesized(合成的)voices at last be able to trick people into thinking that they were getting phone calls or digital audio recordings from people they know?

Even Mr. Fruchterman, one of AT&T labs’ possible first customers, said he wondered what the new technology might bring. “Just like you can’t trust a photograph any more,” he said, “you won’t be able to trust a voice, either”.

1.　　   The passage mainly wants to _______.

A.　　  introduce a new software

B.　　  describe the future market of a new product

C.　　  advertise a new kind of product

D.　　 explain the disadvantage of a new invention

2.　　   With the help of the speech software, it is most possible to _______.

A.　　  help you to find a better job

B.　　  say what you want in another’s voice

C.　　  make a speech much more easily

D.　　 improve a famous person’s speech

3.　　   If the speech software were widely used, ______.

A.　　  no radio or TV broadcasts would be needed

B.　　  people would no longer believe each other

C.　　  it would not be necessary to go for a speech by a famous person

D.　　 recording of a voice alone would not be taken as proof in the court

4.　　   According to the passage, we can infer that ______.

A.　　  the software will soon prove to be nothing but rubbish

B.　　  the government will forbid the sale of the software in the market

C.　　  it’s hard to decide whether the software will enjoy popularity

D.　　 the software will turn out to be an immediate success in the market

 

The next time you try for a high-ranking post, you could let your possible boss listen to a recommending(推荐) phone call “made” by US President George W. Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Of course, neither of them could really do that for you--- you could just “borrow” their voices. AT&T labs will start selling speech software that, it says, is so good at reproducing the sounds of a human voice that it can recreate voices and even bring the voices of long-dead famous people back to life.

The software, which turns printed text into speech, makes it possible for a company to use recording of a person’s voice to say things that the person never actually said.

Possible customers for the software, which is priced in the thousands of dollars, include telephone call centers, companies that make software that automated(使…自动化) digital files voice devices. The advances raise severe problems. Who, for example, owns the rights to a famous person’s voice? Some experts even believe new contracts will be drawn that include voice-licensing clauses(条款).

And although scientists say the technology is not yet good enough to commit fraud(打假), would the synthesized(合成的)voices at last be able to trick people into thinking that they were getting phone calls or digital audio recordings from people they know?

Even Mr. Fruchterman, one of AT&T labs’ possible first customers, said he wondered what the new technology might bring. “Just like you can’t trust a photograph any more,” he said, “you won’t be able to trust a voice, either”.

1.　　   The passage mainly wants to _______.

A.　　  introduce a new software

B.　　  describe the future market of a new product

C.　　  advertise a new kind of product

D.　　 explain the disadvantage of a new invention

2.　　   With the help of the speech software, it is most possible to _______.

A.　　  help you to find a better job

B.　　  say what you want in another’s voice

C.　　  make a speech much more easily

D.　　 improve a famous person’s speech

3.　　   If the speech software were widely used, ______.

A.　　  no radio or TV broadcasts would be needed

B.　　  people would no longer believe each other

C.　　  it would not be necessary to go for a speech by a famous person

D.　　 recording of a voice alone would not be taken as proof in the court

4.　　   According to the passage, we can infer that ______.

A.　　  the software will soon prove to be nothing but rubbish

B.　　  the government will forbid the sale of the software in the market

C.　　  it’s hard to decide whether the software will enjoy popularity

D.　　 the software will turn out to be an immediate success in the market

 

Do you know that men die earlier than women? The latest research makes it known that the reason could be that men’s hearts go into rapid decline when they reach middle age.
　　The largest study of the effects of ageing(变老) on the heart has found that women’s longevity may be linked to the fact that their hearts do not lose their pumping power with age.
　　“We have found that the power of the male heart falls by 20-25 percent between 18 and 70 years of age,” said the head of the study, David Goldspink of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.
　　“Within the heart there are millions of cells that enable it to beat. Between the age of 20 and 70, one-third of those cells die and are not replaced in men,” said Goldspink. “This is part of the aging process.”
　　What surprises scientists is that the female heart sees very little loss of these cells. A healthy 70-year-old woman’s heart could perform almost as well as a 20-year-old one’s.
　　“This gender difference might just explain why women live longer than men,” said Goldspink. They studied more than 250 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 80, focusing on healthy persons to remove the confusing influence of disease. “The team has yet to find why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart,” said Goldspink.
　　The good news is that men can improve the health of their heart with regular exercise. Goldspink stressed that women also need regular exercise to prevent their leg muscles becoming smaller and weaker as they age.
【小题1】 The underlined word “longevity” in the second paragraph probably refers to “________”.

A．health

B．long life

C．ageing

D．effect

【小题2】 The text mainly talks about ________.

A．men’s heart cells	B．women’s ageing process、
C．the gender difference	D．hearts and long life

【小题3】According to the text, the UK scientists have known that ________.

A．women have more cells than men when they are born

B．women can replace the cells that enable the heart to beat

C．the female heart loses few of the cells with age

D．women never lose their pumping power with age

【小题4】If you want to live longer, you should ________.

A．enable your heart to beat much faster

B．find out the reason for ageing

C．exercise regularly to keep your heart healthy

D．prevent your cells from being lost

【小题5】We can know from the passage that ________.

A．the reason why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart has been found out

B．scientists are on the way to finding out why the male heart loses more of the cells

C．the team has done something to prevent the male from suffering the greater loss

D．women over 70 could lose more heart cells than those at the age of 20

Do you know that men die earlier than women? The latest research makes it known that the reason could be that men’s hearts go into rapid decline when they reach middle age.

　　The largest study of the effects of ageing(变老) on the heart has found that women’s longevity may be linked to the fact that their hearts do not lose their pumping power with age.

　　“We have found that the power of the male heart falls by 20-25 percent between 18 and 70 years of age,” said the head of the study, David Goldspink of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.

　　“Within the heart there are millions of cells that enable it to beat. Between the age of 20 and 70, one-third of those cells die and are not replaced in men,” said Goldspink. “This is part of the aging process.”

　　What surprises scientists is that the female heart sees very little loss of these cells. A healthy 70-year-old woman’s heart could perform almost as well as a 20-year-old one’s.

　　“This gender difference might just explain why women live longer than men,” said Goldspink. They studied more than 250 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 80, focusing on healthy persons to remove the confusing influence of disease. “The team has yet to find why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart,” said Goldspink.

　　The good news is that men can improve the health of their heart with regular exercise. Goldspink stressed that women also need regular exercise to prevent their leg muscles becoming smaller and weaker as they age.

1. The underlined word “longevity” in the second paragraph probably refers to “________”.

A．health            B．long life           C．ageing            D．effect

2. The text mainly talks about ________.

A．men’s heart cells                      B．women’s ageing process、

C．the gender difference                    D．hearts and long life

3.According to the text, the UK scientists have known that ________.

A．women have more cells than men when they are born

B．women can replace the cells that enable the heart to beat

C．the female heart loses few of the cells with age

D．women never lose their pumping power with age

4.If you want to live longer, you should ________.

A．enable your heart to beat much faster

B．find out the reason for ageing

C．exercise regularly to keep your heart healthy

D．prevent your cells from being lost

5.We can know from the passage that ________.

A．the reason why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart has been found out

B．scientists are on the way to finding out why the male heart loses more of the cells

C．the team has done something to prevent the male from suffering the greater loss

D．women over 70 could lose more heart cells than those at the age of 20