A device that stops drivers from falling asleep at the wheel is about to undergo 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 fatigue.
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 squeezing the steering wheel(方向盘). 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 warms 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 markers will bring the product to market within about a year. 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 |
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. |
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 |
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 loudl |
In the United States alone, over 100 million cell-phones are thrown away each year. Cell-phones are part of a growing mountain of electronic waste like computers and personal digital assistants. The electronic waste stream is increasing three times faster than traditional garbage as a whole.
Electronic devices contain valuable metals such as gold and silver. A Swiss study reported that while the weight of electronic goods represented by precious metals was relatively small in comparison to total waste, the concentration (含量) of gold and other precious metals was higher in So-called e-waste than in naturally occurring minerals.
Electronic wastes also contain many poisonous metals. Even when the machines are recycled and the harmful metals removed, the recycling process often is carried out in poor countries, in practically uncontrolled ways which allow many poisonous substances to escape into the environment.
Creating products out of raw materials creates much more waste material, up to 100 times more, than the material contained in the finished products. Consider again the cell-phone, and imagine the mines that produced those metals, the factories needed to make the box and packaging(包装) it came in. Many wastes produced in the producing process are harmful as well.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that most waste is dangerous in that "the production, distribution, and use of products - as well as management of the resulting waste - all result in greenhouse gas release." Individuals can reduce their contribution by creating less waste at the start - for instance, buying reusable products and recycling.
In many countries the concept of extended producer responsibility is being considered or has been put in place as an incentive (动机) for reducing waste. If producers are required to take back packaging they use to sell their products, would they reduce the packaging in the first place?
Governments' incentive to require producers to take responsibility for the packaging they produce is usually based on money. Why, they ask, should cities or towns be responsible for paying to deal with the bubble wrap (气泡垫) that encased your television?
From the governments' point of view, a primary goal of laws requiring extended producer responsibility is to transfer both the costs and the physical responsibility of waste management from the government and tax-payers back to the producers.
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By mentioning the Swiss study, the author intends to tell us that.
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| 2． |
The responsibility of e-waste treatment should be extended.
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| 3． |
What does the passage mainly talk about?
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请阅读下列短文, 从短文后各题所给的 A、B、C、D 四个选项中, 选出最佳选项, 并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
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According to the Code, visitors should act.
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| 2． |
What are you encouraged to do when travelling in New Zealand?（）
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C
Have your parents ever inspected your room to see if you cleaned it properly? Imagine having your entire houses, garage, and yard inspected at any time -- with no warning. Inspections were a regular part of lighthouse (灯塔) living, and a keeper's reputation depended on results. A few times each year, an inspector arrived to look over the entire light station. The inspections were supposed to be a surprise, but keeper sometimes had advance notice.
Once lighthouses had telephones, keepers would call each other to warn that the inspector was approaching. After boats began flying special flags noting the inspector aboard, the keeper's family made it a game to see who could notice the boat first. As soon as someone spotted the boat, everyone would do last-minute tidying and change into fancy clothes. The keeper then scurried to put on his dress uniform and cap. Children of keepers remember inspectors wearing white gloves to run their fingers over door frames and windowsills looking for dust.
Despite the serious nature of inspections, they resulted in some funny moments. Betty Byrnes remembered when her mother did not have time to wash all the dishes before an inspection. At the time, people did not have dishwashers in their homes. In an effort to clean up quickly, Mrs. Byrnes tossed all the dishes into a big bread pan, covered them with a cloth and stuck them in the oven. If the inspector opened the oven door, it would look like bread was baking. he never did.
One day, Glenn Furst's mother put oil on the kitchen floor just before the inspector entered their house. Like floor wax, the oil made the floors shiny and helped protect the wood. This time, though, she used a little too much oil. When the inspector extended his hand to greet Glenn's mother, he slipped on the freshly oiled surface. "He came across that floor waving his arms like a young bird attempting its first flight," Glenn late wrote. After he steadied himself, he shook Glenn's mother's hand, and the inspection continued as though nothing had happened.What does Paragraph I tell us about the inspection at the light station?
| A．It was carried out once a year. |
| B．It was often announced in advance. |
| C．It was important for the keeper's fame. |
| D．It was focused on the garage and yard. |
The family began making preparations immediately after ______.
| A．one of the members saw the boat |
| B．a warning call reached the lighthouse |
| C．the keeper put on the dress uniform and cap |
| D．the inspector flew special flags in the distance |
Mrs. Byrnes put the dishes in the oven because this would ______.
| A．result in some fun |
| B．speed up washing them |
| C．make her home look tidy |
| D．be a demand from the inspector |
If the inspector had opened the oven door, he would have seen _______.
| A．an empty pan |
| B．many clean dishes |
| C．pieces of baked bread |
| D．a cloth covering something |
The inspector waved his arms ______.
| A．to try his best to keep steady |
| B．to show his satisfaction with the floor |
| C．to extend a warm greeting to Glenn's mother |
| D．to express his intention to continue the inspection |
In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, "No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me."
The city planner decided to build an underground drainage (排水) system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.
An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced me the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12 feet.
This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?
That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10 jackscrews. At Pullman's signal each man turned his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening. Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.
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The author mentions the joke to show.
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The city planners were convinced by Ellis Chesbrough to.
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| 3． |
The underlined word "hoist" in Paragraph 4 means "".
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What can we conclude about the moving operation of the Tremont Hotel?
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The passage is mainly about the early Chicago's.
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| Forget Cyclists, Pedestrians are Real Danger We are having a debate about this topic. Here are some letters from our readers. ■Yes, many cyclists behave dangerously. Many drivers are disrespectful of cyclists. But pedestrians are probably the worse offenders. People of all ages happily walk along the pavement with eyes and hands glued to the mobile phone, quite unaware of what is going on around them. They may even do the same thing while crossing a road at a pedestrian crossing or elsewhere. The rest of us have to evade (避让) them or just stand still to wait for the unavoidable collision. The real problem is that some pedestrians seem to be, at least for the moment, in worlds of their own that are, to them, much more important than the welfare of others. --Michael Horan ■I love the letter from Bob Brooks about cyclists (Viewpoints, May 29). I am afraid they seem to think they own the roads. I was walking across Altrincham Road one morning when a cyclist went round me and on being asked what he was doing he shouted at me. The government built a cycle lane on the road but it is hardly used. The police do nothing. What a laugh they are! The cyclists should all have to be made to use the cycle lanes and wear helmets, fluorescent (发荧光的) jacket and lights at night and in the morning they should pay some sort of tax and be fined for not wearing them. --Carol Harvey ■Cyclists jump on and off pavements (which are meant for pedestrians), ride at speed along the pavements, and think they have a special right to go through traffic lights when they are on red. I was almost knocked down recently by a cyclist riding on the pavement when there was a cycle lane right next to him. Other road users, including horse riders, manage to obey the rules so why not cyclists? It's about time they had to be registered and insured, so when they do hit a pedestrian or a vehicle, or cause an accident, at least they can be treated and there might be an opportunity to claim. --JML Write to Viewpoints of the newspaper. |
| 1． |
Michael Horan wrote the letter mainly to show that.
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Carol Harvey suggests that cyclists should.
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| 3． |
What is a complaint of JML?
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| 4． |
The underlined word "they" in the third letter refers to.
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| 5． |
The three letters present viewpoints on.
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