Researchers at the University of Bedforshire have developed a new technique for powering electronic device（装置）. The system, developed by Professor Ben Allen at the Centre for Wireless Research, uses radio waves as power.
Believed to be a world first, the team claims it could eventually get rid of the need for conventional batteries. The university has now applied for a patent(专利) application to secure the only rights to the technique.
Professor Allen and his team have created a system to use medium wave frequencies to replace batteries in small everyday devices like clocks and remote controls.
The new technique uses the “waste” energy of radio waves and has been developed as part of the university’s research into “power harvesting”. Professor Allen said that as radio waves have energy---like light waves, sound waves or wind waves---in theory, these waves could be used to create power.
“The new area of power harvesting technology promises to reduce our reliance on conventional batteries,” he said. “It’s really exciting way of taking power from sources other than what we would normally think of.”
The team is now waiting for the results of the patent application to secure recognition of the technique. Professor Allen said that the team’s achievements had all been done in their “spare time”. “Our next stage is to try and raise some real funds so that we can take this work forward and make a working pattern and maybe partner up with the right people and take this to a full product in due course,” he said.
“Power harvesting has a really important part in our future, because, just in this country, we leave somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 tons of batteries in landfill（垃圾填埋）sites every single year－that is poisonous chemicals going into the ground.”
He added that development of the product could also be “commercially（商业） beneficial”. “The market for this is several billion pounds. We’ve seen market predictions for 2020 which have these kinds of figures, so there’s a lot of commercial potential in this area,” he said.
Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bedfordshire, Professor Carsten Maple said, “This type of work is a reflection of the university’s growing reputation and experience in carrying out creating research.”From the text we know the new technique for powering electronic devices_____.
| A．can be applied to all electronic devices. |
| B．uses radio waves to create power. |
| C．has replaced conventional batteries. |
| D．produces many poisonous chemicals. |
According to Professor Allen, power harvesting technology______.
| A．makes every use of radio waves. |
| B．takes power from usual sources. |
| C．reduces our dependency on conventional batteries. |
| D．aims at huge commercial benefits. |
What can we learn about Professor Allen and his team from the text?
| A．They have made use of radio waves in their daily life. |
| B．They have raised a big fund to support their research. |
| C．They have gained a patent for their new technology. |
| D．They mainly did their research in their spare time. |
What is Professor Carsten Maple’s attitude toward the new technique?
| A．Critical. | B．Favorable. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Negative. |
What is the text mainly about?
| A．A new technique to create power. |
| B．A big problem concerning conventional batteries. |
| C．Some special sources of power. |
| D．The development of power harvesting. |
As a school teacher, Inderjit Khurana used to take the train to work. And one day, at the station, she saw dozens of children who spent their days begging from train passengers rather than going to school. She learned that it was not a rare problem and that millions of children in India lived on the streets.
Realizing that these children would never be able to escape poor life and homelessness without education, and that it would be impossible to send these children to school, Inderjit decided to create a model program---taking the school to the most out- of-school children.
Khurana’s train platform schools aim to provide a creative school form and give children the basic levels of education. Her last goals reach far beyond the 20 platform schools she and her colleagues have created in India’s Bhubaneswar region. She is determined that her program will become a model for changing the lives of the poorest children throughout India and the world.
Khurana founded the Ruchika Social Service Organization(RSSO) in 1985. The teachers gather the children together between the stops of the train for reading, writing, maths and history taught through songs and other teaching tools.
Khurana recently comes to realize that the education of these children is impossible when the most basic needs of their families are not being met. So she also provides food and medicine for their families.
Khurana insists that every child have the right to an education and that if a child cannot come to the school, then the school must come to him or her.Khurana’s final aim is to .
| A．make the poorest children’s lives better |
| B．put an end to the problem of children’s dropout(辍学) |
| C．attract more students to her platform schools |
| D．set up 20 platform schools throughout India |
What can we learn about the RSSO?
| A．It has a history of more than 30 years. |
| B．It provides jobs for the poorest children. |
| C．It gives money to the out-of-school children. |
| D．Its work doesn’t only include free education for the street children. |
Khurana also offers free food and medicine to the children because_____.
| A．the basic family needs are included in her model program |
| B．she hopes to draw more people’s attention to the RSSO |
| C．they are the necessities for the out-of-school children |
| D．she wishes to improve local people’s living standard |
Researchers at the University of Kansas say that people can accurately judge 90 percent of a stranger’s personality simply by looking at the person’s shoes.
“Shoes convey a thin but useful piece of information about their wearers,” the authors wrote in the new study published in the Journal of Research in Personality. “Shoes serve a practical purpose, and also serve as nonverbal(非语言的) indications with symbolic messages. People tend to pay attention to the shoes they and others wear.”
Medical Daily notes that the details detected in the study include a person’s general age, sex, income, political affiliation(派别), and other personality characteristics, including someone’s emotional stability.
Lead researcher Omri Gillath said the judgments were based on the style, cost, color, and condition of someone’s shoes. In the study, 63 University of Kansas students looked at pictures showing 208 different pairs of shoes worn by the study’s participants. Volunteers in the study were photographed in their most commonly worn shoes, and then filled out a personality questionnaire.
So, some of the results were expected: People with higher incomes most commonly wore expensive shoes, and flashier footwear was typically worn by extroverts(外向者).
However, some of the more specific results are interesting. For example, “practical and functional” shoes were generally worn by more “agreeable” people, while ankle boots went more closely with “aggressive” personalities.
The strangers of all may be that those who wore “uncomfortable looking” shoes tend to have “calm” personalities.
And if you have several pairs of new shoes or take exceptional care of them, you may suffer from “attachment anxiety”, spending a large amount of time worrying about what other people think of your appearance.
There was even a political calculation in the mix with more liberal types wearing “shabbier and less expensive” shoes.
The researchers noted that some people will choose shoe styles to mask their actual personality characteristics, but researchers noted that volunteers were also likely to be unaware that their footwear choices were showing deep awareness into their personalities.According to Omri Gillath, a stranger’s personality can be judged by ___.
| A．the age and sex of the person |
| B．the personality questionnaire by the person |
| C．the emotional stability of the person |
| D．the shoes the person wearst |
We can infer from Paragraph 2 that ___.
| A．a practical purpose is to wear shoes |
| B．people want to buy new shoes they pay attention to |
| C．shoes are vital to their wearers |
| D．the Journal of Research in Personality is a magazine |
The underlined word “agreeable” is closest in meaning to __.
| A．gentle | B．weak | C．generous | D．considerate |
Which might be the best title for the passage?
| A．Good Shoes, Good Character |
| B．Bad Shoes, Bad Personality |
| C．Shoes and Their Wearers’ Personality |
| D．Shoes Shape A Person’s Character |
We know that the earth has become warmer over the last century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program, reports that the average surface temperature of the earth has increased during the twentieth century by 0.6°+ 0.2°C.(The + 0.2°C means that the increase might be as small as 0.4°C or as great as 0.8°C). This may seem like a small shift, but although regional and short—term temperatures do fluctuate(变动) over a wide range, global temperatures are generally quite stable. In fact, the difference between today’s average global temperature and the average global temperature during the last Ice Age is only about 5 degrees C. Indeed, it’s warmer today around the world than at any time during the past 1,000years, and the warmest years of the previous century have occurred within the past decade.
We also know that human activities—primarily the burning of fossil fuels—have increased the greenhouse gas content of the earth’s atmosphere significantly over the same period. Carbon dioxide is one of the most important greenhouse gases, which trap heat near the planet’s surface.
The vast majority of climate researchers agree with these overall findings. The scientific disagreements that do still exist primarily concern detailed aspects of the processes that make up these largely accepted general themes.
You can think of this website as a window into the world of scientific research. In this primer, you’ll find a general discussion of the physical processes underlying the earth’s climate, an outline of the kinds of data that may shed light on how the climate is changing—and the role of human activity in these changes—and a description a some of the questions and uncertainties that researchers continue to explore. This primer is organized into four interconnected sections: the Atmosphere; the Hydrosphere(水圈); the Cryosphere(低温层); and the Biosphere(生物层).We know from the text that “IPCC”___.
| A．engages in the climate and changes about the earth. |
| B．is a group by scientists who like to walk around the moon |
| C．works in the World Meteorological Organization |
| D．often greets the passers-by from the outer space |
We know from the text that carbon dioxide ___.
| A．is one of the most important greenhouse gases |
| B．has fossil fuels |
| C．traps cold near the planet’s surface |
| D．exist in human activities |
From the text, we know when we say the temperature of something has increased by about 0.7+ 0.2°C, the + 0.2°C means___.
| A．the increase might by as small as 0.3°C or as great as 0.7°C |
| B．the increase might by as small as 0.5°C or as great as 0.8°C |
| C．the increase might by as small as 0.5°C or as great as 0.9°C |
| D．the increase might by as small as 0.4 C or as great as 0.8°C |
What would be the best title for this text?
| A．What Are the Scientific Disagreements |
| B．You Can Think of This Website |
| C．What Do We Know about Global Climate Change? |
| D．The Vast Majority of Climate Researchers |
Shirley Temple Black, who lifted America’s spirit as a bright-eyed child movie star during the Great Depression, peacefully passed away at her California home on Monday evening at 85, surrounded by her family and caregivers.
Temple, born on April 23, 1928, started her entertainment career in the early 1930s and was famous by age 6. Temple was 3 when her mother put her in dance school, where a talent scout spotted her and got her in Baby Burlesks, a series of short movies with child actors playing in adult movies.
Movie studio directors took notice of her and in 1934 she appeared in the film Stand Up and Cheer! and her song and dance caught people’s attention. Movies such as Little Miss Marker and Bright Eyes featured her signature song. In 1935, she received a special Oscar for her “outstanding contribution to screen entertainment” in the movie Stand Up and Cheer!
She made some 40 feature movies, including The Little Colonel, Poor Little Rich Girl, Heidi and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, in 10 years, starring with big-name actors like Randolph Scott, Lionel Barrymore and Jimmy Durante. Temple was a superstar before the term was invented. She said she was about 8 when crowds shouting their love for her made her realize she was famous. “I wondered why,” she recalled. “I asked my mother and she said, ‘Because your films make them happy.’ ”
Her child career came to an end at 12. She tried a few roles as a teenager—including opposite future president Ronald Reagan in That Hagen Girl – but retired from the screen in 1949 at 21.
Temple was only 17 when she married for the first time to John Agar, who would eventually appear with her in two movies. Their five-year marriage produced a daughter. In 1950 she wed Charles Black in a marriage that lasted until his death in 2005. She and Black had two children. Temple’s interest in politics was sparked in the early 1950s when her husband was called back into the Navy to work in Washington.For which movie did Shirley Temple win the Oscar?
| A．That Hagen Girl |
| B．Little Miss Marker |
| C．Stand Up and Cheer |
| D．The Little Colonel |
When Temple first caught the audience’s eyes, ____.
| A．she hoped to play a role in a series of movies |
| B．her family was offered |
| C．her mother sent her to a local dance school |
| D．the United States was in fact in financial straits |
After Temple got married to Charles Black, ____.
| A．she might have begun her political life |
| B．she had to raise her two young children |
| C．she decided to work for the Navy |
| D．she ended her film career on screen |
It can be inferred from the fourth paragraph that ___.
| A．people could find happiness in Temple’s films |
| B．Temple’s mother only focused on income |
| C．Temple disliked crowds shouting at her |
| D．Temple’s mother was worried about her |
A beer bottle thrown from the stands landed near Usain Bolt in the moments before the 100-meter final Sunday night in London.
As Bolt and seven other competitors ducked into their starting crouches, a bottle sailed from the first row of the stands at Olympic Stadium.
It harmlessly bounced in the lane belonging to Yohan Blake and didn’t appear to cause a distraction(分心) to the runners, who started a moment later. The thrower’s lack of distance was a blessing. Had he gathered tips from the competitors of the hammer throw(链球) competition, which was taking place in the infield at the same time as the 100 final, the bottle could have hit one of the competitors. It ended up landing a few feet from Blake (lane5).
Edith Bosch, a female Dutch judoka who won a bronze medal earlier during the Olympics, claimed that the man who threw the bottle was sitting near her and that she “beat” him. Whether that’s true or the hyperbole (夸张的语句) of an aggravated athlete was unclear in the minutes after the incident. Pictures show a group of Dutch athletes sitting behind the starting area.
Police took the man into custody(监护). He will appear in court on Monday morning.
Neither Bolt nor Blake said they knew of the incident until they were informed by reporters. “I don’t know who would have done that,” Bolt said.
Gatlin was aware of it but implied it was only a slight distraction. “I didn’t know what it was,” he said, according to the BBC, “but when you’re in those blocks, the whole stadium is so quiet that you can hear a pin drop.”How many exact athletes are mentioned in the text?
| A．Two | B．Four | C．Seven | D．Eleven |
What is the text mainly about?
| A．Usain Bolt along with seven other competitors |
| B．A female Dutch judoka sitting behind the starting area. |
| C．The lane belonging to Yohan Blake before 100 final. |
| D．A beer bottle thrown at Usain Bolt before 100 final. |
What’s the writer’s attitude towards the athletes for the 100-meter final?
| A．Critical | B．Doubtful |
| C．Disapproving | D．Positive |
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