In a little-known part of the counter-terrorism（反恐怖主义） world, one of the most effective detection systems is a 600-pound animal that works for about 20 pounds of fish a day.

Since the 1960s, the United States and a handful of other countries have trained dolphins and sea lions to detect sea mines and swimmers, to recover inert torpedoes（鱼雷）and to test objects used in Naval exercises.

Program officials estimate that the sea lions in the Marine Mammal Program have recovered millions of dollars of U.S. Naval torpedoes and instrumentation dropped on the sea floor.

The U.S. Navy kept its Marine Mammal Program a secret until the 1990s, and this spring CNN became one of only a handful of media outlets to see firsthand how the program works.

The program has trained about 75 Pacific bottlenose dolphins, with natural biosonar (生物声纳) that tracks better than any manmade device; and 35 California sea lions, with superb underwater eyesight.

Not only do these trained marine mammals track and retrieve millions of dollars in U. S. military equipment, they are also helping to save lives.

The Navy won't disclose whether the dolphins and sea lions have effectively intercepted （阻拦）terrorists attempting to do harm to any U.S. facilities.

"Either way, it serves as a deterrent（阻碍） effect." says Christian Harris, operations supervisor for the program. The mammals can be deployed（调动） via C-130 cargo aircraft to perform their missions anywhere in the world within 72 hours. They have been used in exercises from Alaska to Hawaii, operating in great temperature and environmental ranges. They also have the capability to operate off vessels.

Dolphins most recently were deployed in the Iraq war, performing mine detection and clearance operations in the Persian Gulf to ensure safe passage for humanitarian ships delivering aid. Some of these Iraq war "veterans" are now back home, tasked with a new mission: guarding nuclear submarines in their homeports of Bremerton, Washington, and Groton, Connecticut.

1.The underlined word "retrieve" in Paragraph 6 can be replaced by ________.

A．find out           B．recover           C．save             D．detect

2.Which is NOT the purpose of the Marine Mammal Program?

A．To detect sea mines and swimmers.

B．To save lives of people.

C．To recover inert torpedoes.

D．To help the U.S. Naval test equipment.

3.What can be inferred according to the text?

A．These trained marine mammals eat pounds of fish a day.

B．The U.S. Navy performed the Marine Mammal Program for about 30 years secretly.

C．These mammals can carry out a task everywhere.

D．A lot of countries will train dolphins and sea lions for anti-terrorism.

4.What would be the best title for the passage?

A．The Special Skills of Marine Mammals        B．The U.S. Anti-terrorism Program

C．Exceptional Anti-terrorism Member         D．Trained Marine Mammals

 

Since the 1970s, scientists have been searching for ways to link the brain with computers. Brain-computer interface(BCI) technology could help people with disabilities send commands to machines.

Recently, two researchers, Jose Millan and Michele Tavella from the Federal Polytechnic school in Lausanne, Switzerland, demonstrated（展示）a small robotic wheelchair directed by a person’s thoughts.

In the laboratory, Tavella operated the wheelchair just by thinking about moving his left or right band. He could even talk as he watched the vehicle and guided it with his thoughts.

“our brain has billions of nerve ceils. These send signals through the spinal cord （脊髓）to the muscles to give us the ability to move. But spinal cord injuries or other conditions can prevent these weak electrical signals from reaching the muscles,” Tavella says.  “Our system allows disabled people to communicate with external world and also to control devices.”

The researchers designed a special cap for the user. This head cover picks up the signals from the scalp(头皮) and sends them to a computer. The computer interprets the signals and commands the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair also has two cameras that identify objects in its path. They help the computer react to commands from the brain.                                               

Prof. Millan, the team leader, says scientists keep improving the computer software that interprets brain signals and turns them into simple commands. “The practical possibilities that BCI technology offers to disabled people can be grouped in two categories: communication, and controlling devices. One example is this wheelchair.”

He says his team has set two goals. One is testing with real patients, so as to prove that this is a technology they can benefit frotn. And the other is to guarantee that they can use the technology over long periods of time.

1.

BCI is a technology that can               

A. help to update computer systems      B. link the human brain with computers

C. help the disabled to recover           D. control a person's thoughts

2.

How" did Tavella operate the wheelchair in the laboratory?

A. By controlling his muscles.                 B. By talking to the machine.

C. By moving his hand.                      D. By using his mind.

3.

Which of the following shows the path of the signals described in Paragraph 5?

A. scalp→computer→cap→wheelchair

B. computer→cap→scalp→wheelchair

C. scalp→cap→computer→wheelchair

D. cap→computer→scalp→wheelchair

4.

The team will test with real patients to

A. make profits from them               B. prove the technology useful to them

C. make them live longer                 D. learn about their physical condition

5.

Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A. Switzerland, the BCI Research Center

B. New Findings About How the Human Brain Works

C. BCI Could Mean More Freedom for the Disabled

D. Robotic Vehicles Could Help to Cure Brain Injuries

 

A new study finds that the animal known as man’s best friend can also be a good friend to the heart. Researchers in California say they have found that even just a short visit with a dog helped ease the worries of heart patients.               

The study divided the patients into three groups. In Group A, a dog and a person visited each patient for twelve minutes. Patients in Group B received just a human visitor for twelve minutes. And members of Group C received no visitor, human or canine(犬的).

The dogs would lie on the hospital bed so the heart patients could touch them. The researchers say some patients immediately smiled and talked to the dog and the human visitor. Dogs, in her words, “make people happier, calmer and feel more loved.”

The researchers examined the patients before, during and after the visits. They measured stress levels based on blood flow and heart activity. They say they found a twenty-four percent decrease in the group visited by both a dog and a person. They reported a ten percent decrease in the group visited by a person only. There was no change in the patients without any visit. These patients, however, did have an increase in their production of the hormone epinephrine (epinephrine肾上腺素). The body produces epinephrine during times of stress.

The increase was an average of seven percent. But the study found that patients who spent time with a dog had a seventeen percent drop in their levels of epinephrine. Patients visited by a human but not a dog also had a decrease, but only two percent.

The author believes that _______.  

   A. the dog can take the place of most medicines

   B. the dog is the most popular pet for man

   C. the findings of the research cannot be trusted

   D. visits by a human work better than visits by a dog

Which of the following best shows the stress level changes in the groups of patients? BACC

  

From the research findings we may conclude that _______.

A. the less the body produces epinephrine, the better

B. the longer a visit lasts, the happier the patient should be

C. the patients enjoyed the dogs’ company more than the human visitors’

D. it’s impossible for heart patients to recover without dogs’ visits

Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

  A. Worried Heart Patients               B. Epinephrine and Stress

  C. Good Friend to the Heart             D. Three Groups of Patients

As the economy begins to recover, salary increases should do the same.

    In the past few years, employers have raised workers’ salaries by about 4 percent per year--except for 2009, when the figure dropped to a historically low 2.1 percent, according to a survey of World at Word. About one-third of companies froze raises altogether.

   For 2010, World at Work’s survey projects an average salary increase budget of 2.7 percent, a figure that shows the situation has improved but the job market is still weak. Between 10 percent and 15 percent of companies said they would freeze raises--far fewer than in 2009, but still more than in most years.

  How can you get a raise? Avalos and others offer the following tips:

* Do your job well. This means producing high-quality work, of course, but also keeping the big picture in mind.

“It really comes down to positioning yourself as a high performer, somebody who is aware of business goals and helps the company meet their goals as an organization”, Avalos said

* Be visible. When times are tough, some workers think. “I’m going to hunker down and hope that nobody notices me, because I don’t want to be on a layoff list,” said Richard Phillips, owner of Advantage Career Solutions. This is a mistake, because you’re unlikely to get a raise if no one knows what you have accomplished. “If anything, what you want to do is be more visible.”

 * Make your boss’s life easier. This means everything from having a good attitude to taking on extra tasks. If you don’t know how you can help your boss, ask.

* Ask for a raise. Talk to your boss and present your case: Here’s what I’ve done, here’s how it fits with the company’s goals, and here is why I think it’s worth a salary increase. In some cases, even if your company has an official raise freeze, you can get a raise if you make good case.

  If the answer is no -- or if you’re not ready to ask directly -- Phillips suggests asking, “What would you like to see from me that would put me in line for a raise?”

A question like this can improve your standing. “Just asking the question says to the boss, ‘I’m thinking about where I fit in here, what I can do,” Phillips said, “That in and of itself has value.”

1.The passage is mostly from a\an________.

A. novel                                                           B. science fiction

C. magazine                                                            D. biography

2.Employers have raised workers’ salaries by about _______percent in 2007.

A. 4                                   B. 2.1                          C. 2.7                    D. 10

3.If you want to get a raise, the most important thing you should keep in your mind is to ______.

A. have your job done well                                  B. be visible everywhere as possible as you can

C. ask your boss for a raise directly                D. change your job

4.All the statements are true except________.

A. the situation has improved but the job market is still weak

B. salary increases should recover as the economy does

C. producing high-quality work will surely help you get a raise

D. that in and off an employee makes no difference

 

You feel generally depressed and unable to concentrate. Your pattern of daily activity may change：you find yourself awake and active in the middle of the night；you sleep late into the day.  You stay in your room and have little contact with people except with those who speak your language. In your mind，you criticize the people around you；You are constantly comparing between life here and the perfect life back home. Above a11, you are homesick almost all the time.
If you ever find yourself behaving in these ways，you are probably suffering from culture shock. Culture shock is a psychological condition that sometimes has physical effects. It affects people who have moved away from an environment where they know how to live into a new environment where much is unfamiliar to them-the food，the weather, the language，and especially the unwritten rules for social behavior.
Culture shock is caused. therefore，by a lack of familiarity with the system of rules that the new society uses for everyday living. Language is an obvious example of one type of these rules. If your language is limited，even the simplest task can suddenly become difficult for you. However, knowledge of the language doesn’t make you free from the effects of culture shock as many Britons in the United States and many Americans in Britain will experience. Most people are unaware that each culture has its own rules for social behavior；they certainly think that polite， civilized people behave the same way worldwide. This mistaken belief will cause you to behave and judge the behavior of others according to the rules you learned as a member of your own culture. If the rules are different, then people will misunderstand your behavior, and you will misunderstand theirs.
How can you deal with culture shock? First, you need to realize that every newcomer suffers from some culture shock. You’re not the only case. Second，remember that culture shock can be cured. The process of recovery will start as you begin to become used to the new culture. Of course learning the language will help remove the obstacles to communication and will ease the job of making Mends with people. Recognizing and learning the new cultural rules of behavior, however, may be just as important. You’ll still have emotional reactions to unfamiliar situations but you’11 find yourself making jokes about them rather than condemning the entire society as “stupid.” The jokes are a good sign：they show that you are recovering.
【小题1】What’s the main idea of the first paragraph?

A．the causes of culture shock

B．some signs of culture shock

C．the cure for culture shock

D．an explanation of culture shock

【小题2】What does the underlined word obstacles mean?

A．things that make a task easy

B．things that make at ask enjoyable

C．things that make a task difficult

D．things that make at ask funny

【小题3】What can be concluded when you find yourself making jokes about new culture?

A．You are about to recover from culture shock.

B．You have completely got rid of culture shock.

C．You never suffered from culture shock before.

D．You’re in culture shock for many years.

【小题4】 Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A．The passage suggests that culture shock makes you miss your family badly.

B．A good knowledge of the language will prevent you suffering from culture shock.

C．In the writer’s opinion，the social rules for polite，civilized behavior are international.

D．If you have a perfect knowledge of their language, you will never be misunderstood.