Supermarkets are trying out new computers that make shopping carts more intelligent（具备智能的）. They will help shoppers find paper cups or toilet soap, and keep a record of the bill.
The touch-screen devices（触摸屏装置）are on show at the Food Marketing Institute’s exhibition here this week. “These devices are able to create value and get you around the store quicker,” said Michael Alexandor, manager of Springboard Retail Networks Inc, which makes a smart cart computer called the Concierge.
Canadian stores will test the Concierge in July. A similar device, IBM’s “Shopping Buddy”, has recently been test-marketed at Stop & Shop stores in Massachusetts.
Neither device tells you how many fat grams or calories are in your cart, but they will flash you with items on sale. The idea is to make it easier for people to buy, not to have second thoughts that maybe you should put something back on the shelf.
“The whole model is driven by advertisers’ need to get in front of shoppers,” said Alexandor. “They’re not watching 30-second TV ads anymore.”
People can use a home computer to make their shopping lists. Once at the store, a shopper can use a preferred customer card to start a system（系统）that will organize the trip around the store. If you’re looking for toothpicks, you type in the word or pick it from a list, and a map will appear on the screen showing where you are and where you can find them.
The device also keeps a record of what you buy. When you’re finished, the device figures out your bill. Then you go to the checker or place your card into a self-checkout stand and pay.
The new computerized shopping assistants don’t come cheap. The Buddy devices will cost the average store about $160,000, and the Concierge will cost stores about $500 for each device.
53. The underlined word “they” (paragraph 1) refers to______.
A. supermarkets B. shop assistants
C. shopping carts D. shop managers
54. Which of the following is the correct order of shopping with computerized shopping carts?
a. Start the system. b. Make a shopping list.
c. Find the things you want. d. Go to a self-checkout stand.
A. abdc B. bacd C. acbd D. bcad
55. We can learn from the last paragraph that______.
A. intelligent shopping carts cost a large sum of money
B. the Concierge is cheaper than the Buddy devices
C. shop assistants with computer knowledge are well paid
D. average stores prefer the Concierge to the Buddy devices
56. What might be the most suitable title for the text?
A. New age for supermarkets B. Concierge and Shopping Buddy
C. New computers make shopping carts smarter
D. Touch-screen devices make shopping enjoyable
.
Dear Sir ,
I recently found your website of Chinese a very Culture a very good source .I am a professor teaching at Soochow University in Taipei Taiwan , and I would plan to quite often use some articles on your website for my coures of Introduction to Chinese Culture. Therefore, I’d like to inform you of educational purposes and hopefully to have your permission. Meanwhile, I do wish I could have more materials from your service. Much grateful to you.
Yours sincerely,
Byron Gong
Dear Mr. Byron Gong,
It is pleasue to know that our websit has been of help for you to introduce Chinese culture in your class. Sharing the same mission in promoting culture ,we are glad to grant you the permission in using the sourses of our website for your educational purposes, under the condition that all the sources are credited .However ,if the pictures or articles are to be used for publication, you can mail us and further discuss on that.
We are happy to provide you with some furthetr material, but we would like to know what kind of information would be of interest to you.
Thank you again for attention to our website .Any suggestion is welcome ,and we would appreciate your help if you could tell us what contents in our website are of most interest and significate to you and what parts shoud be given more attention.
Sincerely yours
Chinaculture .org
60. What is Mr. Byron Gong doing?
A. He is working for Soochow University in Taipei Taiwan as a cleaner.
B. He is nothing to do with Soochow University.
C. He is a professor teaching at Soochow University.
D. He is searching for some scholars.
61. Why does Mr. Byron Gong write the letter ?
A. He intends to introduce to his students if Chinese Culture is worth learing .
B. He asks for the permission from the website to use the material in his teaching.
C. He expects to be allowed to work in the group in the website.
D,He would like to inforn the website that he hopes to help then introduce Chinese culture.
62.What was the response of the website after they received the letter ?
A The wehsite responed to his letter coldly.
B. The wehsite responed to his letter in a polite and anxious way.
C. The website answered him enthusiasticaly,reasonably and suggestibly.
D. The website answered him eagerly.
63. What can we learn from the response of the website ?
A. They would be grateful to informed what contents are interesting and significant.
B. They wish to learn more about Mr. Byon Gong’s hobbies.
C. They expect to know more about their mistakes in the material.
D. They hope for his appreciation in return for the use of their material.
.
第三部分：阅读理解（共20分，每题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A B C D）中选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
I strongly believe it’s happy to have a day in the year , when we can toghter talk about the progress women have made over the years , although we still have to deal with many more lifestyle pressures compared to men.
For all the fellow sisters who’ve still not figured out the power of being a woman,it’s high time to realize how easy it is for us to brust into tears in public to get the pressure out ,or cry for emotional reasons, or for no specific reason at all. Our tears are at least regared as an outlet for emotional stress ,and not as a sign of weakness . Please allow me to say jokingly here——the tears can best be used as a winning tool in an argumentative——your point will have to be heard and agreed upon!
We are socially acoepted as proud “homemakers”if we choose to live that way . What a relief from the social burden of “earning enough for the family “.
We have the amazing option of wearing make-up. Of course , we are “natural beauties “, but who minds improving those pretty looks ! How easy it is for us to look taller whenever we want to. We can wander in those fashionable dresses and don’t lack choices when it comes to dressing up for parties and weddings .
What an advantage : You can wear his shirts or T-shirts if you want, but poor he can’t even think of feel getting into any of your designer dresses !
You can’t ignore the benefits that may come in your way from men in the name of gentleman’s behavior ! You can feel important every time he opens the car door for you before sitting into the driver/s seat hinself.
If you’re a daddy’s girl , you can comfortably feel most protective . But as to a mamma’s boy , he isn’t easy .
Cheers to the “advantages of womanhood”.
56. The passage is mainly about
A , the difference between being a woman and being a man
B, the disadvantages of being a man
C. the advantages of being a woman .
D. the pressure coming from being a woman.
57. Which of the following is NOT true according to the text ?
A. Like the husband, the wife should also be a breadwinner in a family.
B. Generally speaking, it is acceptable for a woman to make up.
C. It is good manners for a man to open the car door for a lady.
D. People can be dasily touched by women’s tears.
58. The writer implies that women can look taller easily by_____.
A. talking exercise B.talking some kind of medicine
C. putting on high ---heeled shoes D. going on a diet
59. What tone (口气，语气) does the author use in the passage ?
A. Unpleasant B. Serious. C. Regreful. D, Relaxing .
.
Saving the Planet with Earth-Friendly Bamboo Products
Jackie Heinricher’s love with bamboo started in her backyard. “As a child, I remember playing among the golden bamboo my dad had planted, and when there was a slight wind, the bamboos sounded really musical.”
A fishing biologist, Heinricher, 47, planned to work in the industry in Seattle, where she lived with her husband, Guy Thornburgh, but she found it too competitive. Then her garden gave her the idea for a business: She’d planted 20 bamboo forests on their seven-acre farm.
Heinricher started Boo-Shoot Gardens in 1998. She realized early on what is just now beginning to be known to the rest of the world. It can be used to make fishing poles, skateboards, buildings, furniture, floors, and even clothing. An added bonus: Bamboo absorbs four times as much carbon dioxide as a group of hardwood trees and releases 35 percent more oxygen.
First she had to find a way to mass-produce the plants—a tough task, since bamboo flowers create seed only once every 50 to 100 years. And dividing a bamboo plant frequently kills it.
Heinricher appealed to Randy Burr, a tissue culture expert, to help her. “People kept telling us we’d never figure it out,” says Heinricher. “Others had worked on it for 27 years! I believed in what we were doing, though, so I just kept going.”
She was right to feel a sense of urgency. Bamboo forests are being rapidly used up, and a United Nations report showed that even though bamboo is highly renewable, as many as half of the world’s species are threatened with dying out. Heinricher knew that bamboo could make a significant impact on carbon emissions (排放) and world economies, but only if huge numbers could be produced. And that’s just what she and Burr figured out after nine years of experiments—a way to grow millions of plants. By placing cuttings in test tubes with salts, vitamins, plant hormones, and seaweed gel, they got the plants to grow and then raised them in soil in greenhouses.
Not long after it, Burr’s lab hit financial difficulties. Heinricher had no experience running a tissue culture operation, but she wasn’t prepared to quit. So she bought the lab.
Today Heinricher heads up a profitable multimillion-dollar company, working on species from all over the world and selling them to wholesalers. “If you want to farm bamboo, it’s hard to do without the young plants, and that’s what we have,” she says proudly.
72. What was the main problem with planting bamboo widely?
A. They didn’t have enough young bamboo.
B. They were short of money and experience.
C. They didn’t have a big enough farm to do it.
D. They were not understood by other people.
73. What does Heinricher think of bamboo?
A. Renewable and acceptable B. Productive and flexible.
C. Useful and earth-friendly. D. Strong and profitable.
74. The underlined word “renewable” in Paragraph 6 probably means “________”.
A. able to be replaced naturally B. able to be raised difficultly
C. able to be shaped easily D. able to be recycled conveniently
75. What do you learn from the passage?
A. Heinricher’s love for bamboo led to her experiments in the lab.
B. Heinricher’s determination helped her to succeed in her work.
C. Heinricher struggled to prevent bamboo from disappearing.
D. Heinricher finally succeeded in realizing her childhood dream.
.
A device that stops drivers from falling asleep at the wheel is about to undergo(接受) testing at Department of Transport laboratories and could go on sale within 12 months.
The system, called driver Alert, aims to reduce deadly road accidents by 20%--40% that are caused by tiredness. Airline pilots can also use it to reduce the 30% of all pilot-error accidents that are related to tiredness.
Driver Alert is based on a computerized wristband. The device, worn by drivers or pilots gives out a sound about every four minutes during a car journey. After each sound the driver must respond by pressing the steering wheel. A sensor in the wristband detects this pressing action and measures the time between the sound and the driver’s response.
Tiredness is directly related to a driver’s response time. Usually, a watchful driver would take about 400 milliseconds to respond, but once that falls to more than 500 milliseconds, it suggests that the driver is getting sleepy.
In such cases the device gives out more regular and louder sounds, showing that the driver should open a window or stop for a rest. If the driver’s response continues to slow down, the sounds become more frequent until a nonstop alarm warns that the driver must stop as soon as possible.
The device has been delivered to the department’s laboratories for testing. If these tests, scheduled for six months’ time, are successful, the makers will bring the product to market within about a year.
68. How should a driver respond to the sounds from Driver Alert?
A. By sounding a warning. B. By touching the wristband.
C. By checking the driving time. D. By pressing the steering wheel.
69. We can learn from the text that the driver needs to stop for a break when his response time is ________
A. about 400 milliseconds B. below 500 milliseconds
C. over 500 milliseconds D. about 4 minutes
70. When the driver gets sleepy while driving, Driver Alert ______.
A. moves more regularly B. stops working properly
C. opens the window for the driver D. sounds more frequently and loudly
71. According to the text, Driver Alert ______.
A. aims to reduce tiredness-related accidents
B. has gone through testing at laboratories
C. aims to prevent drivers from sleeping
D. has been on sale for 12 months
.
Being the boss might mean more money and challenging work but it can also cause damage to physical and mental well-being, according to a Canadian study.
For years studies have shown people in lower-status jobs generally have higher rates of heart disease and other illnesses and die earlier than those in higher-status positions while job authority has shown no relationship with workers’ health.
But University of Toronto researchers, using data from 1,800 US workers, found the health of people in higher positions is affected by work as they are more likely to report conflicts with co-workers and say work disturbs their home life.
However, the positive aspects of having a power position at work, such as higher status, more pay and greater independence, seemed to cancel out the negative aspects when it came to people’s physical and psychological health.
These latest findings, reported in the journal Social Science & Medicine, suggest that the advantages and disadvantages authority positions basically cancel each other out, giving the general impression that job authority has no health effects.
For the study, the researchers surveyed participants about various aspects of their work, life and well-being. Job authority was judged based on whether a person managed other employees and had power over hiring, firing and pay.
Physical health complaints included problems like headaches, body aches, heartburn and tiredness. Psychological complaints included sleep problems, difficulty concentrating and feelings of sadness, worry and anxiety.
“This isn’t to suggest that having authority is ‘bad’—in fact, we show it has benefits ... but it is important to identify the negative sides and deal with them.” researcher Scott Schieman said.
Schieman said conflicts with co-workers or involvement of work into home life may destroy at physical and mental well-being by creating stress.
“These are key stressors that can tax individuals’ ability to function effectively,” Schieman said.
64. Work will have a negative effect on job authority’s health probably because __________.
A. they are not fit for their work
B. they have power over hiring and pay
C. they are faced with severe competition
D. they don’t get on well with their co-workers
65. Most people don’t see that bosses have health effects because __________.
A. their health problems are not serious enough to see
B. they have enough money to keep themselves healthy
C. their problems are quite different from those of workers
D. the advantages and disadvantages of their status work against each other
66. From the passage we can infer that the study aims to _________.
A. warn people not to be a boss for ever
B. remind the boss to deal with the bad effects of their work
C. show that having authority is harmful to one’s health
D. prove that being a boss can benefit a lot
67. The best title for this passage might be ________.
A. Lower-status can affect health B. Authority can affect health
C. Positive aspects of a power position D. Disadvantages of being a boss
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