More than half of the world’s population live in cities. Traffic and pollution are becoming big problems in big cities all over the world. In cities like Mexico City, Shanghai or Cairo the quality of air is getting worse every day. In the United States, people spend more time sitting in traffic jams.
Some of the world’s cities have already found the answer to the problem. In Bogota, the capital of Columbia, the government has taken measures to improve the quality of life for the city’s 8 million people. They created over a thousand new parks, a new public transport system, and built hundreds of cycling and walking paths. People who live in the city also joined in making their city one of the most livable (适合居住的) places in South America.
Today city planners around the world are looking for ways to provide more room for living and less room for cars. In America, public transport has increased over 2 % since the mid 1990s — not much but a start. More and more people leave their cars at home and get on buses, trains or even ride a bike to work. Some cities are far better at planning than others. In Amsterdam, for example, only 40 % of the population use their cars to get to work, 35 % ride bikes while 25% use public transport. In Paris, about half of the city’s workers drive their cars to work.
For cities in developing countries, the problems have just started. Traffic is getting worse as more and more people can afford to buy a car. The writer listed Mexico City, Shanghai and Cairo as examples of cities of ______.
| A．heavy traffic | B．air pollution |
| C．rapid development | D．large population |
What did Bogota do to improve the quality of life for its people?
| A．It shut down some factories in the city. |
| B．It introduced a foreign public transport system. |
| C．It encouraged people to plant trees in the city. |
| D．It built new parks and a new public transport system. |
From the third paragraph, we can learn that ______.
| A．35% of the population in Paris ride bikes to work |
| B．half of the people in Amsterdam drive their cars to work |
| C．a quarter of the people in Amsterdam use public transport |
| D．American public transport has increased much since the 1990s |
What would be the best title of the text?
| A．Ways to solve traffic jams |
| B．New changes in transport systems |
| C．People’s new choice in big cities |
| D．Parks instead of cars for cities |
The website “FarmersOnly. com” calls itself an online dating and friendship finder. The idea started in the mind of a man，Jerry Miller in Ohio. He wondered how farmers could meet new people who understand the life of a farmer. Jerry Miller is not a farmer but he represents a lot of farmers.
As he tells it，the idea for the site was planted when a farmer told him one day that she was recently divorced and would like to date. But someone would invite her to meet for coffee at nine o'clock at night，when she had to start her day at five the next morning.
So，in 2005，Jerry Miller launched his website. “You don't have to be a farmer to be on ‘FarmersOnly. com’，but you do have to have the good old-fashioned traditional values of America's heartland.”
You also have to live in the United States or Canada to be a member of the site. Some services are free，but a full membership costs fifty dollars for a year. As of last week the site listed more than 58,000 members. Many of them are farmers in the United States. Others are students or workers involved in some way with agriculture. Jerry Miller tells us about thirty marriages in the last year have resulted from his website.
Some farmers have also found love through a group，Singles in Agriculture，which was formed as a nonprofit organization in 1986.It organizes gatherings that usually end with a dance，but is not a dating service. The purpose is to support educational and social activities that offer people a chance for friendship. Its website，“singlesinag.org”，says there are more than 1,000 members across the nation and as far away as France.Jerry Miller started “FarmersOnly.com” in order to ________.
| A．help farmers |
| B．support traditions |
| C．understand farmers |
| D．represent farmers |
Which of the following is true of “singlesinag.org”？
| A．Its services are free. |
| B．It provides dating services. |
| C．Only farmers can become its members. |
| D．Farmers in France can't benefit from it. |
The author of the text intends to ________.
| A．advertise for the two websites |
| B．introduce two websites |
| C．encourage social activities |
| D．urge readers to help farmers |
It can be inferred from the text that ________.
| A．all farmers desire marriage |
| B．farmers are easy to meet new people |
| C．more farmers get divorced in the USA |
| D．the Internet helps improve farmers' social life |
Why do human beings still risk their lives under ground and doing one of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the world？A small group of engineers and robotics experts envision(展望) a day in the not-too-distant future when robots and other technology do most of the dangerous mining work.
One of the first mining robots was developed five years ago at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. It was called Groundhog and it looked like a golf cart. It used lasers(激光) to “see” in dark tunnels and map abandoned mines－some of the most dangerous work in the business.
The latest prototype is called Cave Crawler. It's a bit smaller than Groundhog，and even more advanced. It can take photos and videos and has sensors that can detect the presence of dangerous gases. Incredibly，the robot has a real sense of logic. If it comes across an obstacle it gets momentarily confused. It has to think about what to do and where to go next. Sometimes it throws_a_fit just like a real person.
Myles and his colleagues hope that robots like Cave Crawler will one day be used in rescue operations. “A robot could speed up the rescue process by doing reconnaissance(侦察)，” says Chuck Whittaker，a robotics engineer at Carnegie Mellon. “The robot can go ahead and，with its sensors，report what it has found and whether it is safe for humans to proceed.”
Using robots in rescue operations，though，is problematic. The lasers that guide the robots don't work in smoky environments so the engineers at Carnegie Mellon have experimented with sonar(声呐)and radar guidance systems，and with some success.
Some experts predict that robots in mines will serve much of the same function that they do in the automotive industry. The robots do the most repetitive and dangerous jobs，but won't get rid of the need for human workers.The underlined phrase “throws a fit” in Paragraph 3 probably means ______.
| A．gets angry |
| B．gets shocked |
| C．becomes confused |
| D．becomes cheerful |
The latest robot is more advanced than Groundhog mainly because ________.
| A．it can map abandoned mines |
| B．it can see in the dark tunnels |
| C．it's smaller than Groundhog |
| D．it has a real sense of logic |
We can infer from the last paragraph that ________.
| A．the mining robots will have a very bright future |
| B．robots in the automotive industry must be improved |
| C．there will be no need for human workers in mines |
| D．robots in mines will cost a lot |
What can guide the robots in smoky environments?
| A．The lasers. |
| B．Sonar and radar guidance systems. |
| C．Command guidance systems. |
| D．Image matching guidance systems. |
My friend had mentioned the other day that her father had a lot of children's toys he was looking to give away. She knew I have a three-year-old daughter so she thought of me first. I told her I would love it if I could get some nice things for my daughter, which I wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford.
When I met her father, he began to explain he was too poor once and that he would hate to throw away things that can be very useful.
Before he showed me what he was giving away, I thought the toys would be mostly lego's(乐高积木) or things like that. When he was showing me around I saw a bed, a slide, a kitchen set and many other things that just blew my mind. He told me to write a list of everything my daughter could use and as my eyes were wide, he told me not to feel guilty. He said I was helping him by getting rid of the stuff.
As I was looking around I did feel guilty, but I tried to remain more grateful than guilty. Every time I tried to thank him for giving me and my daughter all this wonderful stuff he would thank me right back. I wanted to believe that he was just thanking me so that I wouldn't feel so guilty but in reality I believe that he was as grateful as I was that these toys would be put to good use.
In the eyes of charity, it makes sense to feel grateful, but guilt is just as normal. I know that we could have lived without a slide, which is why I do feel guilty, but I am grateful all the same because my daughter really does enjoy all these nice things!Why did the old man want to give away his toys?
| A．He wanted to help those poor children. |
| B．He was wealthy enough to buy new toys. |
| C．He wanted to make full use of those toys. |
| D．He needed some space for more useful things. |
In the writer's opinion, the old man felt grateful because
| A．he wanted to make her more guilty |
| B．he wanted her to take the toys quickly |
| C．the toys would be put to good use |
| D．he finally got rid of the stuff |
What can we know from the passage?
| A．The writer took all the toys home. |
| B．The old man was a kind and thoughtful person |
| C．The writer wanted to refuse the stuff when she first saw them. |
| D．The writer's daughter enjoyed the slide most among all the stuff. |
How did the writer feel when given the stuff?
| A．Guilty and honored. | B．Grateful and respected. |
| C．Honored and respected. | D．Guilty and grateful. |
Tiny transmitters(发射机) fixed on the backs of the blue-green bees have allowed scientists to follow the insects as they fly for miles in search of rare flowers.
Working in Panama, scientists caught 17 bees of the common species and fixed a 300 milligram radio light onto the back of each. The signals they sent out were used to follow their movements in and around the forest where they lived.
Professor Martin, from Princeton University, US, and the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, said, “By following the radio signals, we discovered that male bees spent most of their time in small centre areas, but could take off and visit areas farther away. One male even crossed over the shipping lanes in the Panama Canal, flying at least 5km, and returned a few days later.”
Researchers have struggled to follow the movements of bees before, following bees marked with paint or using radar which doesn’t work well in forests.
“Carrying the transmitter could reduce the distance that the bees travel, but even if the flight distances we record are the shortest distances that these bees can fly, they are impressive, long-distance movements,” said Dr. Roland Kays, from New York State Museum, a co-author of the research published today in the on-line journal. “This result helps to explain how these bees’ pollination(授粉) can be so rare.” Pollination by bees and other insects is the key to the diversity and continued growth of flowers and trees in some forests.
The new study is the first to use radio transmitters to follow bees in a forest. Similar research may now be carried in temperate forests, where bees also play a vital role.The main purpose of the passage is to___
| A．call on people to protect the bees for the environment |
| B．explain why the bees fly far away in search of flowers |
| C．introduce a modern way to follow the bees to readers |
| D．encourage the public to support the scientists’ research |
What was the problem when researchers tried to follow the bees in the past?
| A．It was quite difficult to mark the bees |
| B．The radar itself didn’t work very well |
| C．The bees weren’t easy to be recognized |
| D．Environmental limits were hard to solve |
What Dr. Roland Kays said implied that____
| A．he didn’t expect bees could fly so long a distance |
| B．The transmitter didn’t have any effects on bees at all |
| C．He wanted to know how far bees could travel badly |
| D．The record was in fact as exact as he had thought |
Researchers follow the movements of bees mainly to___
| A．learn how far they can fly at most |
| B．discover how they affect the plants |
| C．correct some wrong ideas about bees |
| D．get to know where they enjoy living |
If you’re tired of the Mediterranean and don’t want to head to Disney again, perhaps it’s time for a summer holiday in space. Russia has declared plans for its first floating hotel, 217 miles above earth, and it is something of an offering with good service.
Hosting just seven guests in a four cabins, the accommodation will boast huge windows with views back to earth and tasty microwave meals will be served instead of the ones often used by astronauts.
Just getting there will be an adventure in itself—it will take two days aboard a Soyuz rocket—and it won’t exactly be a budget holiday: A five-day stay will cost you￡100, 000 to￡500, 000 for your journey. The hotel is due to open by 2016 and, according to those behind it, will be far more comfortable than the International Space Station (ISS) used by astronauts and cosmonauts.
In the weightlessness of space, visitors can choose to have beds that are either vertical or horizontal. Tourists, who will be accompanied by experienced crew, will dine on food prepared on Earth and sent up on the rocket, to be reheated in microwave ovens. Many kinds of delicacies will be available.
Iced tea, mineral water and fruit juices will be available, but alcohol will be strictly prohibited. Toilets will use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system. Waste water will be recycled.
Sergei Kostenko, chief executive of Orbital Technologies which will construct the hotel, said: “Our planned module inside will not remind you of the International Space Station. A hotel should be comfortable inside, and it will be possible to look at the Earth. The hotel will be aimed at wealthy individuals and people working for private companies who want to do research in space.” The hotel can also be used as an emergency bolthole (避难处) for astronauts aboard the International Space Station if there is a crisis.Which can be the best title of the passage?
| A．Russia declares the design for its first space hotel |
| B．The first space hotel is under construction now |
| C．The astronauts will have a second home in space |
| D．Russia has the advanced technology in exploring space |
What does the underlined word “budget” in the 3rd paragraph mean?
| A．expensive | B．worthwhile |
| C．economic | D．uncomfortable |
What kind of accommodation will the guests have in the space hotel?
| A．They will have the same food as the astronauts have. |
| B．Many kinds of drinks are available including alcohol. |
| C．Guests can have beds that are either vertical or horizontal. |
| D．Tourists are accompanied by the astronauts from the ISS. |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．The space hotel is built to remind you of the International Space Station. |
| B．The hotel is constructed with big windows so that tourists can see the earth. |
| C．The company, Orbital Technologies, has already begun to build the space hotel. |
| D．In the near future, a space trip for most of the people can be realized. |
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