With intelligence systems and New Age networks, life in the big cities will likely be happier and more efficient (有效率的). After all, more than 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities by 2050, according to a UN report. The answer to making these cities more livable for so many people lies in creating “smart” cities. They will use 5G networks and the Internet of Things (LOT) to make everyday life safer and more convenient. Some cities are already using smart technology to improve the lives of their people.
But what exactly does a smart city do? Let’s s look at a few examples. In United States cities of Boston and Baltimore, sensors (传感器) in smart rubbish cans can tell cleaning workers how full they are and when they need to be emptied. In Amsterdam, the Netherlands, traffic flow and energy usage are kept track of and adjusted (调节) according to real-time data collected from sensors around the city. And in Copenhagen, Denmark, a smart bike system allows riders to check on air quality and traffic jams as they ride.
Smart cities will be interactive (互动的), allowing their people to fed like they’re truly shaping their environment, instead of only living in it. It’s very important that we can actually communicate with our environment in a way that we never had in the past. Smart cities will also allow us to save resources. By using sensors and 5G networks to watch over the use of water, gas and electricity, city managers can figure out how to share and save these resources more efficiently.
Of course, it will take time and money to turn our present cities into the smart cities of the future. But as we’ve already seen, more cities around the world are already using smart technology in small ways. It won’t be long before more cities start to develop their own smart systems.
1. What makes it necessary to create smart cities?| A．The development of present cities. |
| B．The increasing population in cities. |
| C．The wide use of 5G networks and IOT. |
| D．The growing number of present cities. |
| A．By adjusting the cans’ position. |
| B．By keeping track of the air quality. |
| C．By emptying the rubbish by themselves. |
| D．By reminding the workers to clean them. |
| A．How smart cities work. |
| B．The future of smart cities. |
| C．The influence of 5G on smart cities. |
| D．How smart cities communicate with us. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Worried. |
| C．Uninterested. | D．Doubtful. |
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【推荐1】“Iris scan, please,” the bank's computer voice tells you. You step up and the computer reads your eye, comparing it to the stored file it has of your iris. The images had better match—otherwise you won't be able to get your money.
Iris scanning and other technologies, such as fingerprint and voice scanning, have appeared in many science fiction movies in the past. Today, They are common at work, the bank, the airport, and your local prison. The iris scan, fingerprint scan, and voice scan are all examples of biometrics, a fast-developing area of automatic personal identification technology. Basically, biometrics uses various ways to verify a person's identity, based on the people’s unique characteristics, including fingerprints, voices, irises, body heat patterns, facial images, handprints, signatures and so on.
Iris scans currently give the highest level of accuracy among all the available biometrics systems. Another technology, full facial scans, is currently in use at border crossings and airports. Facial scanning equipment can actually track and identify moving faces within a crowd.
The potential of biometrics is exciting and encouraging. With continued development, testing and application, current technologies will become even more effective in the future. Soon, the days of password and car keys will be gone. Just don't leave home without your fingerprints!
1. The first paragraph serves as a(n) ______ .| A．example | B．explanation | C．comment | D．conclusion |
| A．protect | B．prove | C．develop | D．change |
| A．The voice scan. | B．The fingerprint scan. | C．The iris scan. | D．The facial scan. |
| A．He feels hopeful about it | B．He feels doubtful about it. |
| C．He is worried about it. | D．He is uncertain about it. |
【推荐2】Astronauts get to experience many interesting attractions. When astronauts go to space, they can become weightless. They get to see Earth as a little blue dot. Astronauts get to experience shooting up into space at 20,000 miles per hour. That is more than three times faster than an airplane. Sill, food is not one of the interesting parts of being an astronaut. Space travelers have had to eat strange foods. One example is liquid salt and pepper.
However, the menu for astronauts is going to grow. Scientists have been growing lettuce in outer space. The lettuce is just as safe, nutritious(有营养的) and tasty as lettuce grown on Earth Gioia Mass works at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida. She is the lead scientist on the lettuce growing project. She said that growing food in space could be pivotal for astronauts on long missions(任务). Massa says that today’s space food may not work for these longer missions. This packaged food is stored for a long time. The quality and taste of the food goes down. In addition, the vitamins in the food start to breakdown. Massa says the astronauts may not get enough nutrition from these foods during long missions.
She also added that there could be another benefit to growing food in space. Looking after plants could help astronauts emotionally. Space food has improved in recent years. Many astronauts visit the International Space Station (ISS). It is a research station in outer space. Anything sent to ISS has to be perfect on a taste test. Even so, astronauts can grow tired of eating the same old meals. Massa says many of the astronauts end up losing weight.
The space-grown lettuce was similar to Earth-grown lettuce. In fact, some of the space-grown plants had more nutrients than Earth-grown lettuce. The space lettuce also had higher levels of bacteria(细菌). This was possibly because the lettuce grew in a warmer, more humid system. However, none of this bacteria was dangerous.
1. Why does the author mention some strange foods space travelers have had to eat?| A．To draw a conclusion. | B．To prove an idea. |
| C．To introduce the topic. | D．To give explanations. |
| A．Important. | B．Unbelievable. |
| C．Adventurous. | D．Impossible. |
| A．Astronauts get little nutrition from growing food in space. |
| B．Growing food in space gives astronauts a more varied diet. |
| C．Astronauts get help physically by looking after plants in space. |
| D．Astronauts never grow tired of eating the same old packaged food. |
| A．NASA will grow other produce on the ISS. |
| B．More and more astronauts will end up losing weight. |
| C．Astronauts will stop their missions and tum to growing space food. |
| D．More Earth-grown food will be sent to ISS to keep astronauts from getting sick. |
【推荐3】If you have tried chatting with ChatGPT lately, you have probably been met with an “at capacity” error message at some point. The chatbot’s sudden huge popularity can make accessing the service pretty tricky. And while it’s fun to chat with the AI or even get it to write essays or take exams, some people want guaranteed access so they can use the chatbot for professional purposes.
Earlier this month, OpenAI announced that it may soon start offering a paid-for version of ChatGPT with an option called ChatGPT Professional. A waitlist that OpenAI posted to the server detailed what pro users might expect.
The professional offering, which OpenAI described as “experimental”, will be “always available,” offer “fast responses from ChatGPT,” and would provide “as many messages as you need.” The waitlist also noted that, if selected, OpenAI would reach out to you individually to set up a payment process and a pilot.
Now it seems like OpenAI has picked its early access users and they are sharing some insights. Zahid Khawaja, an early access user, shared a video on Twitter running a test prompt on the pro version that ran much quicker than the free version the rest of the public has access to. In the video, Khawaja showed his subscription cost, which comes in at $ 42 a month.
How OpenAI decided on $ 42 a month is yet to be revealed-perhaps it’s yet another Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference. However, in December Sam Altman, OpenAl’s chief executive said the average cost of each response was in “single-digits cents”, but he admitted it will need to charge the service eventually because of its “eye-watering“ compute costs. A recent agreement with Microsoft, which will see the software giant invest billions in OpenAI over the next few years, will also likely help.
Despite its popularity, ChatGPT isn’t the only AI chatbot on the market. The $ 42 a month price tag is causing some users to seek other alternatives that might be more cost effective and just as efficient.
1. What does the author think of having access to the service?| A．Not easy. | B．Not good. |
| C．Not tough. | D．Not slow. |
| A．All-time availability. |
| B．Enough information. |
| C．Free subscription. |
| D．Faster response. |
| A．It is to be revealed next month. |
| B．It is customers’ requirements. |
| C．It needs Microsoft’s investment. |
| D．It needs very high running costs. |
| A．ChatGPT charges the lowest on the market. |
| B．ChatGPT will lose most of its access users. |
| C．ChatGPT may lose some targeted customers. |
| D．ChatGPT is more effective and efficient. |
【推荐1】Would you like to be an actor, but aren’t at the right age or with attractive appearance for the part? Don’t give up: there may be a place for you in the world of voice acting.
Twenty-year-old Ricky Collins brings Tucker Foley to life in the cartoon Danny Phantom. In addition to many appearances on television and in movies, Rickey is a voice-over actor, someone we hear but don’t see. Rickey has acted since he was 6, both on and off camera. After school, his grandmother—a manager and acting coach—helped him develop his skills by doing voice exercises and reading aloud.
Voice-over actors do many kinds of acting. They are the voices of cartoon characters on television, in movies and video games, and for communicating toys. In films, they replace the foreign language conversation with English version. They create crowd noises, make commercials, act in radio plays, and record telephone instructions and public announcements. They read books on tape and even record museum tours.
Like other actors, voice-over actors need to understand scripts, interpret characters, and breathe correctly. They have to master voice techniques, such as pacing, volume, and range. Sometimes they use their normal voices; other times they change their voices to create different characters or noises. Rickey receives his Danny Phantom scripts only a few days before he tapes each episode. He writes helpful notes on the scripts to guide himself on speaking his part.
Rickey practices, and then tapes at the recording studio. He and the other cast members sit in a soundproof booth, acting out their characters as they read their lines into the microphones. “The cartoon gets created after we record the words, so we have to imagine everything in our mind.” says Rickey. Later, the recorded words, music and sound effects are combined with the cartoon art to create the cartoon we enjoy on TV. Sounds interesting? Maybe you can have a “voice” in acting after all!
1. From the passage we can infer that ________.| A．it’s very complex to become a cartoon film voice-over actor. |
| B．Rickey has been involved in acting most of his life. |
| C．Rickey’s mother helped him a lot with acting. |
| D．many people have nice voices. |
| A．Rickey draws the character. |
| B．Rickey names Tucker Foley. |
| C．Rickey makes the character seem real. |
| D．Rickey decides the future of Tucker Foley. |
| A．Every voice-over actor works very hard. |
| B．Being a voice-over actor needs talents. |
| C．Being a voice-over actor requires skills. |
| D．Voice-over actors have more techniques than other actors. |
| A．who want to build a career in voice acting |
| B．who need to develop their stage-acting skills |
| C．who want to understand scripting |
| D．who need to practice voice exercises |
【推荐2】Visitors post photos and videos of themselves getting close to flamingos at several resorts (旅游胜地) in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic on social media. The pink, leggy birds wander the grounds, walking through artificial ponds and eating food dropped by tourists.
“But behind the fantastic social media posts, things are less rosy for the flamingos,” says Fernandez, a Dominican conservationist and photographer.
Some of these flamings have their secondary feathers cut, which prohibits flight. Others have a bone removed from their wings. This grounds the bird for life, which can be up to 60 years.
Fernandez has also witnessed flamingos being given much pet food, which eventually fades the pink color that comes from eating their native diet of shrimp and other small crustaceans. The birds change behaviorally as well, becoming used to people and asking them for food, as Fernandez has seen.
On the other side of the country, Monte Cristi National Park is the natural habitat for Caribbean flamings; it’s also a popular trapping site. And it is here that Paulino works to remove the traps, which are made of wooden sticks attached to fishing wires.
Paulino’s group first noticed the traps in 2009 and has been reporting them to the authorities ever since, but the practice hasn’t stopped. Once, Paulino says, she spotted a trapper carrying nine flamingos in a bag. On a trip early in 2023, the group took 706 traps from three locations.
This method of trapping harms, or even kills the birds, which Paulino has seen firsthand in the field. Flamingos are walking around and all of a sudden their leg falls in the wires and when they pull, they’re caught. They are trapped by the knee or the ankle, and struggle to break free, which exhausts them.
1. Why do some flamingos have their secondary feathers cut?| A．To help them live longer. | B．To make them more beautiful. |
| C．To make them fly higher. | D．To destroy their flying ability. |
| A．The change of their food. | B．Suffering from serious diseases. |
| C．Living with other small animals. | D．The influence of eating too much food. |
| A．Clever. | B．Cruel. | C．Creative. | D．Careless. |
| A．The Survival Situation of Flamingos Is Unoptimistic |
| B．Flamingos Live a More Comfortable Life in Resorts |
| C．People Have Raised Awareness of Protecting Animals |
| D．The Methods of Protecting Flamingos Are Inappropriate |
【推荐3】There are many different types of poems.
Many people have heard about haiku. In fact, most of us are taught at one point or another －usually in elementary school or high school-to write one of our very own. Actually,haiku is a form of poetry made up of three non-rhyming lines. They often express feelings and thoughts about nature; however,you could write a poem about any subject you like in this form.
One of the poetic favorites is pastoral(田园的）poetry because it means wonderful senses of peace and harmony. Examples of this form include Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn. Like the haiku,nature is often at the center of this type of poem as well. In general,pastoral poetry will focus on describing a rural(乡村的）place, but the terms will be peaceful. You feel at ease after reading this type of poem. Many pastoral poems are written about shepherds.
Are you familiar with the term“ballad”？ Probably you are,because people sometimes refer to songs - particularly romantic ones -as ballads. In fact, ballad poems are frequently sung or at least they are intended to be sung, and they are often about love. Often, these ballads will tell stories and they tend to be of a mystical nature.
A limerick is a poem that is often silly or funny, written in five lines with AABBA rhyme（押韵）.Often,a limerick tells a short,humorous story. This type of poem has been popular for hundreds of years, particularly in the English language. When limericks first became popular, they often expressed ideas that were dirty, but today limericks express all sorts of ideas.
1. What do we learn about haiku poems?| A．They rhyme. | B．They're very short. |
| C．They have seven lines. | D．They're hard to write. |
| A．Funny. | B．Sad. | C．Relaxing. | D．Encouraging. |
| A．Song writers. | B．Famous poets. |
| C．Humorous people. | D．People admiring nature. |
| A．Topics of Poems. | B．History of Poems. |
| C．Origin of Poems. | D．Forms of Poems. |
