I was in a strange city I didn’t know at all, and what’s more, I could not speak a word of the language. On my second day I got on the first bus that passed, rode on it for several stops, then got off and walked on. The first two hours passed pleasantly enough, then I decided to turn back to my hotel for lunch. After walking about for some time, I decided I had better ask the way. The trouble was that the only word I knew of the language was the name of the street in which I lived, and even that I pronounced badly. I stopped to ask a newspaper-seller. He handed me a paper. I shook my head and repeated the name of the street and he put the paper into my hands. I had to give him some money and went on my way. The next person.I asked was a policeman. He listened to me carefully, nodded and gently took me by the arm. There was a strange look in his eyes as he pointed left and right and left again. I nodded politely and began walking in the direction he pointed.
About an hour passed and I noticed that the houses were getting fewer and fewer and green fields were appearing on either side of me. I had come all the way into the countryside. The only thing left for me to do was find the nearest railway station.The writer preferred to walk back to his hotel because.
| A．he had no money to buy a ticket |
| B．he wanted to lose himself in the city |
| C．he tried to know the city in this way |
| D．it was late and there were no buses passing by |
From the story we know that the policeman______.
| A．was kind but didn’t understand the writer |
| B．told the writer where to take a train |
| C．knew what the writer really meant |
| D．was cold-hearted and didn’t help the writer |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．The writer got close to the hotel where he stayed. |
| B．The writer got to the hotel with the policeman’s help. |
| C．The writer found he was much farther away from the hotel. |
| D．The writer found the hotel in the direction the policeman pointed. |
In your opinion, what was the writer’s real trouble?
| A．He didn’t know the city at all. | B．He couldn’t speak the language. |
| C．He went too far in the wrong bus. | D．He followed the policeman’s direction. |
In a few years, you might be able to speak Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French,and English—and all at the same time. This sounds incredible, but Alex Waibel,a computer science professor at US's Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Germany's University of Karlsruhe,announced last week that it may soon be reality. He and his team have invented software and hardware that could make it far easier for people who speak different languages to understand each other.
One application, called Lecture Translation, can easily translate a speech from one language into another. Current translation technologies typically limit speakers to certain topics or a limited vocabulary. Users also have to be trained how to use the programme.
Another prototype(雏形机) can send translations of a speech to different listeners depending on what language they speak.“It is like having a simultaneous translator right next to you but without disturbing the person next to you,” Waibel said.
Prefer to read? So-called Translation Glasses transcribe(转录) the translations on a tiny liquid-crystal(液晶) display(LCD) screen.
Then there's the Muscle Translator. Electrodes capture the electrical signals from facial muscle movements made naturally when a person is mouthing words. The signals are then translated into speech. The electrodes could be replaced with wireless chips implanted in a person's face, according to researchers.
During a demonstration held last Thursday in CMU's Pittsburgh campus, a Chinese student named Stan Jou had 11 tiny electrodes attached to the muscles of his cheeks, neck and throat. Then he mouthed—without speaking aloud—a few words in Mandarin(普通话) to the audience. A few seconds later, the phrase was displayed on a computer screen and spoken out by the computer in English and Spanish: “Let me introduce our new prototype.”
This particular gadget(器械),when fully developed, might allow anyone to speak in any number of languages or, as Waibel put it, “to switch your mouth to a foreign language”. “The idea behind the university's prototypes is to create ‘good enough’ bridges for cross-cultural exchanges that are becoming more common in the world,” Waibel said.
With spontaneous(自发的) translators, foreign drivers in Germany could listen to traffic warnings on the radio, tourists in China could read all the signs and talk with local people, and leaders of different countries could have secret talks without any interpreters there.Which of the following statements is not TRUE?
| A．A lecture translation can translate what you said into other languages easily. |
| B．There is no Muscle Translator in the world now. |
| C．Muscle Translators can translate what you think into speech if you just move your mouth. |
| D．The spontaneous translators will help us a lot. |
What kind of equipment is NOT mentioned in this passage?
| A．Lecture Translation. |
| B．Muscle Translator. |
| C．Multiple Translator. |
| D．Translation Prototype. |
What's the final destination of inventing the language translators?
| A．To make cultural exchanges between different countries easier. |
| B．To help students learn foreign languages more easily. |
| C．To make people live in foreign countries more comfortably. |
| D．To help people learn more foreign languages in the future. |
Where can this passage probably excerpted from?
| A．A newspaper. | B．A magazine on science. |
| C．A fairy tale. | D．A scientific fantasy book. |
For some time past,it has been widely accepted that babies—and other creatures—learn to do things because certain acts lead to “rewards(报酬)”,and there is no reason to doubt that this is true. But it used also to be widely believed that effective rewards, at least in the early time, had to be directly connected to such basic physiological(生理的) “drives” as thirst or hunger. In other words, a baby would learn if he got food or drink or some sort of physical comfort, not otherwise.
It is now clear that this is not so. Babies will learn to behave in ways that produce results in the world with no reward except success in sight.
Papousek began his studies by using milk in the normal way to “reward” the babies and to teach them to carry out some simple movements, such as turning the head to one side or the other.Then he noticed that a baby who had had enough to drink would refuse the milk but would still go on making the learned response(回答) with clear signs of pleasure. So he began to study the children's responses in situations where no milk was provided. He quickly found that children as young as four months would learn to turn their heads to right or left if the movement “turned on” some lights—and indeed that they were able to learn some more turns to bring about(产生) this result,for example,two left or two right,or even to make as many as three turns to one side.
Papousek's light experiment was placed directly in front of the babies and he made the interesting observation that sometimes they would not turn back to watch the light closely although they would “smile and speak” when the light was on.Papousek concluded that it was not the sight of the lights which pleased them.It was the success they were achieving in solving the problem,in mastering the skill,and then there is a basic human nature to make sense of the world and bring it under control.According to the writer,babies learn to do things which _______.
| A．will satisfy their surprise | B．will meet their physical needs |
| C．are directly connected to pleasure | D．will bring them a feeling of success |
Papousek noticed in his studies that a baby _______.
| A．would make learned responses when it saw the milk |
| B．would continue the simple movements without being given milk |
| C．would turn its head to right or left when it had enough to drink |
| D．would carry out learned movements when it had enough to drink |
In Papousek's experiment babies make learned movements of the head in order to _______.
| A．be praised | B．please their parents |
| C．be rewarded with milk | D．have the lights turned on |
The babies would “smile and speak” at the lights because _______.
| A．they succeeded in “turning on” the lights |
| B．the sight of lights was interesting |
| C．they need not turn back to watch the lights |
| D．the lights were directly connected to some basic “drives” |
Perhaps you will visit New York one day. You might be a student there. Here is some advice.
Get a good map of the city. It will also have subway and bus maps. Remember the directions—uptown, downtown, east and west. Feel the excitement of New York .Have fun!
NEW YORK CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU
Address:90 East 42nd Street,N.Y.100017
Telephone:6871300
TIMES SQUARE INFORMATION CENTER
Address:43rd Street between Seventh Avenue and Broadway
Telephone:5938983
TRAVELERS' AID SOCIETY
Address:204 ast 39th Street,N.Y.10016(central office)
Telephone:6790200
TRAVEL INFORMATION:NEW YORK SUBWAYS AND BUSES
Telephone:3301234
OTHER TELEPHONE NUMBERS
The weather:WE 61212.The time:ME 71212
Emergency (Police,Fire,or Ambulance):911 or “0” for operator
A doctor:8971000
USEFUL BOOK
Seeing New York; The official MTA Travel Guide,published by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Introductions and directions |
| B．This is New York |
| C．Information and advice |
| D．Have fun here |
If you lose your passport in New York, you may probably get help from _______.
| A．CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU |
| B．TIMES SQUARE INFORMATION CENTER |
| C．USEFUL BOOK |
| D．TRAVEL INFORMATION |
If a visitor wanted to take a train, he could get some help by dialing the number “_______”.
| A．8971000 | B．3301234 | C．WE 61212 | D．911 or “0” |
It will be hot—hot enough that most locals will have cleared town for cooler places. But because athletes competing at the 2004 Olympics have no choice but to stay in the hot weather, many plan to turn to science to stay cool.
Some will put their hands in ice water just before competing and nearly all will be wearing fabrics(织物) designed with hot weather in mind.
“Normally we warm up before exercise,”said Gordon Sleivert, director of sports science and medicine at the Canadian Sport Center in Victoria, British Columbia.“But in this case we're taking the warm out of warm up. It's like pre-cooling.”
Experts are predicting(预测) the average high this August in Athens will be 90 degrees Fahrenheit, with temperatures often reaching above 100(the average temperature in Sydney for the 2000 summer games was 64).
Although some events, such as the marathon, will start early(1 a.m.) to avoid hot weather, other competitors will be pushing their limits during high temperatures. Drinking lots of water will help athletes keep cool, but humidity(湿度) remains a problem. The body's ability to cool down is weakened by damp air since sweat drips off the skin rather than evaporates(蒸发),resulting in dehydration(脱水) without the cooling.
“Getting hot is a real problem because when our brains heats up, the brain waves are more like when you're really sleepy. Everything feels harder,” said Sleivert. The passage mainly tells us that _______.
| A．why it is very hot in Athens |
| B．the hot weather is a big problem for Olympic athletes |
| C．how important science is to every athlete |
| D．the Olympics will be put off because of the hot weather |
The underlined sentence “other competitors will be pushing their limits during high temperatures”in the fifth paragraph means _______.
| A．Olympic athletes will put off their competition time |
| B．some events in the Olympics will have to be put forward |
| C．competitors can't reach their limits in the hot weather |
| D．competitors will have to try their best to compete under any condition |
The following things will be likely to happen in the hot weather EXCEPT _______.
| A．dehydration |
| B．being sleepy |
| C．that the blood in the body can become less and less |
| D．that the body's ability to cool down is weakened |
British men are couch potatoes. They spend nearly half their freetime watching TV. They watch more TV than women, do less housework, less charity work and less childcare—but spend more time shopping, a poll(民意测验) suggests. Analysts(分析家) from Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, interviewed working men and women in 10 countries.
Britain, where men devoted 49% of their freetime to the box, came a narrow second to the Hungarians with 51%.German and Norwegian men watched the least TV—just over one third of their spare time.
The analysts took the average of the figures for the whole year including holidays and weekends. They broke down the “average day” into five categories(类)—free-time, sleep, meals and personal care, travel, domestic chores(家务事) and work or study. It shows that British men have four hours and 41 minutes free time each day—20 minutes more than women. But women spend nearly double the amount of time on domestic chores than men. Almost three-and-a-half hours of a woman's day is taken up with domestic work, compared to less than two hours for men.
Food preparation makes up the bulk(量) of the chores, with leaning and shopping the next most time-consuming. They further broke down the free-time and domestic categories to show that men spend 137 minutes each day in front of the TV, compared to women's 114 minutes.
Women spend slightly more time socializing resting and reading than men, but slightly less time on hobbies, sport and exercise. Universally unpopular with both sexes is culture—accounting for just 2% of both men and women's leisure time.According to the passage, couch potatoes refer to _______.
| A．a kind of potatoes produced in Britain |
| B．people spending much time sitting and watching television |
| C．a kind of food offered by the English people |
| D．people who like doing housework instead of watching TV |
According to the passage, which of the following may NOT be included in the ten countries?
| A．Germany. | B．Norway. | C．Hungary. | D．Russia. |
What both men and women don't like in their spare time is _______.
| A．taking part in cultural activities | B．shopping |
| C．enjoying their hobbies | D．doing domestic chores |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Domestic Chores—Only Women's Right |
| B．British Men—Couch Potatoes |
| C．What the Research Means |
| D．Men and Women in Different Situations |
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