A team of scientists from University of Freiburg in Germany are developing a shoe with a sensor to automatically tie its laces(鞋带)that could be taken off when users click their heels together．
It’s been 26 years since we saw them magically tightening Marty McFly’s Nike boots in the film Back to The Future．
Now，self-tying shoelaces could actually become a reality this year，proving right one of the film’s fantastical predictions for what 2015 would be like．
Engineers have designed a shoe that can automatically lace up，adjusting itself to the shape of your foot．
Simply slip the controller on and pressure sensors will tell the ‘smart shoe’ when your foot is in position，triggering(触发)a tiny motor in the heel that pulls the laces tight.
When you want to take off the shoes，you click your heels together twice and the motor will release a spring(弹簧)in the shoe’s tongue，which loosens the laces enough for you to slip them off．
And the invention doesn’t even need to be plugged in to charge or have its battery replaced because it runs on power generated by the swing of your foot as you walk.
Engineer K1evis Ylli，of the Institute for Micromachining and Information Technology in southern Gemany，said the shoes could help a variety of different people.
“One focus is that it could be used in shoes for elderly people who have mobility problems，”he said．“But it could also work for children，or as a lifestyle product．”．
The design，which is still in a prototype(雏形)stage，cleverly gets the energy of the foot’s swing when opposing magnets in each shoe move past each other. It then uses that power to charge a battery．An hour of walking is enough to tighten the laces once，and it requires no energy to undo the shoes because that relies on the spring alone.Which of the following can be the best title of the text?
| A．A fantastical prediction |
| B．A great invention in Germany |
| C．A shoe with self-tying laces |
| D．A popular lifestyle product |
What can we learn about the shoes?
| A．They can automatically take off． |
| B．They can adjust themselves to your foot． |
| C．They need to be charged once． |
| D．They have been in design for 26 years． |
From the last paragraph we can know ____________．
| A．the shoes have been put into use |
| B．the shoes need power to take off |
| C．the shoes promise to be popular |
| D．how the shoes work to produce energy |
For their nick-of-time acts, Toby, a 2-year-old dog, and Winnie, a cute cat, were named Dog and Cat of the Year by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
As Amy Paul choked(哽住) on a piece of apple at her home, her dog jumped up, landing hard on her chest and forcing the piece in her throat out. When the Keesling family of Indiana was about to be killed by carbon monoxide, their cat clawed at the wife Cathy’s hair until she woke up and called for help.
No one could explain their timely heroics.
Both pets were rescued by their owners in infancy-----Toby as a 4-week-old thrown into a garbage bin to die, and Winnie as a week-old orphan hiding under a barn, so helpless that Cathy’s husband, Eric, had to feed her milk with an eyedropper.
As the Keeslings recalled it, a gas-driven pump being used broke down, spreading carbon monoxide through the house. By the time Winnie went to rescue, the couple’s 14-year-old son was already unconscious. “Winnie jumped on the bed and was clawing at me, with a kind of angry sound,” Cathy Keesling said. The state police responding to her 911 call said the family was only minutes from death, judging by the amount of poisonous gas in the house.
Amy Paul’s husband was at his job when she took a midday break from making jewelry and bit into an apple. “Normally I peel them, but I read in Good Housekeeping Magazine that the skin has all the nutrients, so I ate the skin, and that’s what caused me to choke,” she recalled. “I couldn’t breathe and I was in panic when Toby jumped on me. He never does that, but he did, and saved my life.”
Both Toby and Winnie accompanied their owners to the awards luncheon.What would be the suitable title for the passage?
| A．Great Honors for Cat and Dog |
| B．Dog and Cat Honored for Saving Their Masters |
| C．Unforgettable Experiences |
| D．So Smart Animals Are |
Winnie saved the lives of its owner’s whole family in an accident by __________.
| A．jumping onto its owner | B．calling for help |
| C．making some strange noises | D．clawing at Cathy’s hair |
Which of the following has the similar meaning to the underlined word “infancy” in Paragraph 4?
| A．babyhood | B．Youth | C．Middle age | D．agedness |
What caused the carbon monoxide spreading through the house?
| A．A pump breaking down. | B．A driver breaking into the house. |
| C．The burning gas. | D．The poisonous gas. |
Why did Amy Paul choke on a piece of apple?
| A．She was too young to care for herself. |
| B．She had a big bite. |
| C．She didn’t peel the skin as usual. |
| D．The apple was too hard. |
Ever since man began to use the telephone, there have been new problems arising from the carrying of messages. At first, each message was carried by a pair of overhead wires. As a result, telephone exchanges were soon surrounded by thousands of wires. The wires were then replaced by cables (电缆)，each containing many pairs of wires. Each cable is capable of carrying many messages. These cables, laid underground, replaced the overhead wires.
The more extensive telephone services have become, the more demand for these services has increased, particularly the demand for long-distance services. In China, for example, this growth is now over 30% every year. Long-distance telephone exchanges are usually in crowded cities, where is not easy to lay new labels for expanding services.
The use of radio to send telephone message and to link all telephone exchanges makes it possible to get rid of overhead wires and some underground cables.
Now man has invented the microwave system ( 微波系统 ). In a microwave system messages from various places can be brought together, and then they are sent out and received by radio. After that, the messages are split into their original form. Finally, they are sent to the places where they are going to be sent.The word “message” ( in paragraph 1) is close in meaning to “______”.
| A．electricity | B．industry | C．information | D．wave |
A cable is different from an overhead wire, because it ________.
| A．is made of wood |
| B．needs more exchange |
| C．carries more messages |
| D．is much longer |
What does the word extensive mean？
| A．growing | B．using | C．holding | D．understanding |
The best title for the passage would be “________”.
| A．The Telephone and Its Past |
| B．From the Wire to the Microwave System |
| C．The Needs for Better Telephones |
| D．How to Use the Telephone |
There is very simple way of measuring the height of a water-tower, which we cannot measure by climbing.
Suppose, for example, that we wish to find out the height of the water-tower, AB, in a factory. We first of all go to where the water-tower is standing and measure a distance of, say, 25 feet from it. Then we take a stick, and stand it in the ground at the spot we have just marked.
Let us suppose the stick we are using is 4 feet in height. We now walk farther away from the water –tower in the same straight line as when we measured off the distance of 25 feet. We go from the water-tower until we come to point E, where with our head on the ground, we see the top of the stick and the top of the water-tower in the same height line---that is, the top of the stick just covers the highest part of the water-tower. Every schoolboy can work out the height of the water-tower now.
Suppose that the line CE is five feet. We know that the stick is 4 feet high and the distance BE is 30 feet. Thus, 5 is to 4 as 30 is to AB.If we want to know how high a tall tree is,_______.
A. we have to climb up the tree
B. we have no way out
C. we must cut down the tree
D we needn’t climb up the tree According to the passage, which of the following is correct?
It is clear from this that the problem can be settled by _________.
| A．a child |
| B．the boy who has little schooling |
| C．everyone |
| D．a girl at middle school |
To measure a water-tower in this way, _________.
| A．no tool is needed |
| B．Besides a stick, tape-measure (卷尺) or at least a ruler is necessary. |
| C．we have to use nothing but a stick |
| D．we have to prepare a set of expensive tools |
When John Weston awoke that morning, he remembered that his mother was going into hospital. He hadn’t worked out quite what was wrong with her. He knew, though that she hadn’t been well for some time now, and it had become almost familiar to him to see her eyes narrowed in a sudden attack of pain, and her hand pressing against her heart. Their own doctor, who she had finally gone to for advice, had sent her to an expert who knew all about these things. He had told her that just as soon as there was a bed for her, she would have to come into his hospital where he could look after her himself.
During the weeks since then the pains had come even more frequently, and the narrowed eyes became an almost permanent part of her expression. Always rather sharp, she began losing her temper over little things so that John’s father kept his thoughts to himself more and more. John, as ready as possible to make allowances, tried to think what it would be like to have toothache all the time and how bad-tempered that would make you.
So his mother would go into hospital for a few days. He was going to stay with his Aunt Daisy till she came back, and his father would stay on at home by himself. John’s cousin, Mona, was to come in and make the bed and wash the pots and dust round now and again. That was the arrangement, and John didn’t care much for it. Apart from missing his mother(and he was glad she was going away because they would make her better), he wasn’t very fond of his Aunt Daisy because she was even more bad-tempered than his mother.Mrs Weston went to see her doctor_________.
| A．as soon as she realized that something was wrong |
| B．only after her husband advised her to |
| C．a long time after the trouble began |
| D．when John asked what was wrong with her |
what did Mrs Weston’s own doctor decide to do?
| A．he decided to send her to hospital |
| B．he decided to get an expert to examine her |
| C．He decided to treat her himself |
| D．He advised her to wait for a few weeks. |
how did John react to his mother’s bad temper?
| A．he tried to imagine himself in her place. |
| B．He tried not to notice it. |
| C．He pretended that he had toothache. |
| D．He behaved himself as well as possible. |
John regarded ______as most bad-tempered.
| A．his father | B．his mother | C．his cousin Mona | D．his aunt Daisy |
Having a husband means an extra seven hours of housework each week for women, according to a new study. For men, getting married saves an hour of housework a week. “It’s a well-known pattern,” said lead researcher Frank Stafford at University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. “Men usually work more outside the home, while women take on more of the housework.”
He points out that differences among households (家庭) exist. But in general, marriage means more housework for women and less for men. “And the situation gets worse for women when they have children.” Stafford said.
Overall, times are changing in the American home. In 1976, women busied themselves with 26 weekly hours of sweeping-and-dusting work, compared with 17 hours in 2005. Men are taking on more housework, more than doubling their housework hours from six in 1976 to 13 in 2005.
Single women in their 20s and 30s did the least housework, about 12 weekly hours, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most – about 21 hours a week.
Men showed a somewhat different pattern, with older men picking up the broom more often than younger men. Single men worked the hardest around the house, more than that of all other age groups of married men.
Having children increases housework even further. With more than three, for example, wives took on more of the extra work, clocking about 28 hours a week compared with husbands’ 10 hours.According to the “well-known pattern” in Paragraph 1, a married man ________.
| A．takes on heavier work |
| B．does more housework |
| C．is the main breadwinner |
| D．is the master of the house |
How many hours of housework did men do every week in the 1970s?
| A．About 28 | B．About 26 | C．About 13 | D．About 6 |
What kind of man is doing most housework according to the text?
| A．An unmarried man. |
| B．An older married man. |
| C．A younger married man. |
| D．A married man with children. |
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