In Stark County, a group of high school students are working on a solution for a dangerous intersection(交叉路口). They’re in the process of developing technology to make the intersection of Mayfair and Wise roads safer.
At Green High School, while many students are home enjoying their spring break, one group of students are testing out a project they have been working on since October. In their STEM class, they were given the task of coming up with an idea that could be entered into the “Samsung Solve for Tomorrow” project.
“Samsung puts out some grant(助学金) money and they challenge students to bond with their community to solve problems for the betterment of the community,” said Green High School science teacher Christopher Kriebel.
The intersection the students chose looks like a normal intersection at first glance, but on closer inspection, there are multiple hills that cause blind spots, leaving only three or four seconds of notice if there’s a car coming in at 45 mph. That’s really dangerous. The students’ solution involves sensors that notice oncoming traffic from distances up to 12 or 13 meters, which then light up a sign.
Though the project started in class, the three students, Erich, Giuliana Ciccarelli-Aloisi and Alec Hemphill, took it on full-time in their science club after their STEM course ended. They spent hours outside of school working to perfect their idea and even getting the city involved, working with the mayor(市长) and engineers.
Now as they continue to work on their invention, these students are in disbelief at what they’ve created. They hope they’ll win the competition on April 5 when they are to submit their final video to Samsung explaining what they’ve done and what they hope to continue to do. The students will test the project at the intersection. If the students make it, they could end up in New York in the top 10.
1. What are the group of students at Green High School doing?| A．They are brainstorming ideas for future society. |
| B．They are working to solve a problem for Samsung. |
| C．They are trying to find a solution to a traffic problem. |
| D．They are developing technology to be applied to their STEM class. |
| A．To present the main idea of the text. |
| B．To support the author’s point of view. |
| C．To provide some background information. |
| D．To give an example of the students’ commitment. |
| A．Creative and devoted. | B．Intelligent and brave. |
| C．Cooperative and cautious. | D．Generous and determined. |
| A．They ended up among the top ten. |
| B．They are excited about their invention. |
| C．They are disappointed at the test result. |
| D．They won praise from the city officials. |
相似题推荐
Are you a media addict who would go mad after two hours without TV,friend requests,exciting online games and your mobile-or would you easily survive？
Recently,university students around the world were asked to volunteer in a global experiment called Unplugged.
Unplugged is being run by Dr. Roman Gerodimos,a lecturer in Communication and Journalism at Bournemouth University. The experiment is now over but he doesn't yet know the full findings.
However,during the experiment,Dr. Gerodimos said there were already signs of how much the exercise affected volunteers.
During their 24-hour ordeal(煎熬),three of the experiment's participants had to endure one intrusion from the media,a BBC reporter plus cameraman who followed them around for the day. They were asked to write down 100 lines about their day offline,but of course,they all waited until the next day when they had access to their laptops.
Elliot Day wrote,
From Caroline Scott,we read,”I didn't expect it,but being deprived of the media for 24 hours resulted in my day-to-day activities becoming so much harder to carry out than usual…I didn't break out in a cold sweat like our lecturer expected us all to,but it's not something I would like to do again！”
And Charlotte Gay wrote,”I have to say the most difficult item for me to be without has been my mobile;not only is it a social tool,it's my main access point of communication.”
Earlier in the year, a U.K. government study found that in the U.K. people spend about half their waking hours using the media, often trying to know several things at once.
So, with technology continuing to develop at an alarming rate, how much time will you set aside for sleep in the future?
| A．According to experts, U. S. teenagers will suffer both mentally and physically due to their addiction to media devices. |
| B．Today, my whole morning routine was thrown up into the air. |
| C．And a recent study by Nielson found that on average, U. S. teenagers send and receive over 3,000 texts per month-that's about six texts per waking hour. |
| D．Never have I regretted wasting so much time in the social media. |
| E．It was designed to see how young people would react if they were asked to observe a total media ban by unplugging all forms of media devices for 24 hours. |
| F．He said, “They're overeating, feeling nervous, isolated and disconnected.” |
【推荐2】Narayana Peesapaty was sitting on a flight when he noticed a passenger trying to reach food with a biscuit after breaking his spoon. At that moment, the researcher’s mind gave birth to a simple yet revolutionary concept — edible spoons.
How do you like your spoon?
Peesapaty’s company, Bakeys, makes edible spoons mainly out of sorghum(高粱）though rice, wheat and water are also ingredients. They combine to form a dry eating tool that remains hard even when used in moist or hot foods. Bakeys also makes ginger and garlic flavored(风味) spoons to meet specific requests. All spoons are completely natural and acceptable for nearly all diets.
A rice replacement
An environmentally-minded water researcher, Peesapaty, designed his spoons to be eco-friendly in several ways. Sorghum was chosen as the main ingredient of the spoons instead of rice, which requires 60 times as much water. Sorghum was also chosen for the strength it would lend eating tool, and the grain requires little water, low energy and no chemicals to grow.
In place of plastic
The goal that Peesapaty hopes to attain through Bakeys is to prevent plastic from any contact with food. Plastic products can contain cancer-causing substances that come into food, and average plastic bottles take 450 years to break down. In contrast, a Bakeys’ spoon is nutritious and break down in 10 days or less if thrown away. Peesapaty admits that using plastic is cheaper, but he also says that his spoons will be equally inexpensive when mass-produced.
1. Why is “the edible spoon” called a revolutionary concept?| A．It is natural and eatable. | B．It remains hard in hot foods. |
| C．It offers various flavors. | D．It meets all customers’ requests. |
| A．Being delicious. | B．Being strong. |
| C．Being nutritious. | D．Being eco-friendly. |
| A．Cheaper. | B．Breaking down easily. |
| C．Tougher. | D．Contacting food directly. |
【推荐3】Open an app at your smart phone and scan the code bar (二维码) on the garbage can. When you throw garbage into the garbage can, it will show the weight of the garbage and the points you can get from doing so.
In some cities, a variety of multifunctional smart garbage cans are being put into use. In Beijing, for example, a smart garbage can is equipped with an LED screen, which not only shows national policies on garbage classification but also shows the correct steps for garbage sorting. It can also calculate the weight of the garbage and the accumulated points one can get. They can be traded for some articles of daily use.
Garbage disposal is a small issue that involves everybody each day. However, it is also a big issue.
| A．The good habit of garbage classification can improve the living environment. |
| B．Over 200 million tons of garbage is produced each year in some cities. |
| C．It will affect China’s transformation towards green development. |
| D．Such a way of handling garbage has appeared in some cities. |
| E．It is no wonder that residents cheered for their presence. |
| F．Another kind of garbage can is even smarter. |
| G．Garbage sorting has been a new fashion. |
Tests on rats show that those who raise two or more litters of pups do considerably better in tests of memory and skills than rats who have no babies, and their brains show changes that suggest they may be protected against diseases such as Alzheimer’s（早老痴呆症）．University of Richmond psychology professor Craig Kinsley believes his findings will translate into humans．“Our research shows that the hormones of pregnancy（怀孕） are protecting the brain, including estrogen（雌激素）, which we know has many neuroprotective （保护神经的） effects,” Kinsley said．
“It’s rat data but humans are mammals just like these animals are mammals,” he added in a telephone interview．“They go through pregnancy and hormonal changes．” Kinsley said he hoped public health officials and researchers will look to see if having had children protects a woman from Alzheimer’s and other forms of age-related brain decline．
“When people think about pregnancy, they think about what happens to babies and the mother from the neck down,” said Kinsley, who presented his findings to the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in Orlando, Florida．
“They do not realize that hormones are washing on the brain．If you look at female animals that have never gone through pregnancy, they act differently toward young．But if she goes through pregnancy, she will sacrifice her life for her infant—that is a great change in her behavior that showed in genetic alterations（改变） to the brain．”
1. How do scientists know “Motherhood may make women smarter”?
| A．Some researchers have told them． |
| B．Many women say so． |
| C．They know it by experimenting on rats． |
| D．They know it through their own experience． |
| A．Baby rats． | B．Animals． | C．Old rats． | D．Grown-up rats． |
| A．Estrogen． |
| B．The hormones of pregnancy． |
| C．More exercise． |
| D．Taking care of children． |
| A．The experiments on the rats have nothing to do with humans． |
| B．The experiments on the rats are very important for animals． |
| C．The experiments on the rats are much the same on humans． |
| D．The experiments on the rats are much the same on other animals． |
| A．Do You Want to Be Smarter? |
| B．Motherhood Makes Women Smarter |
| C．Mysterious Hormones |
| D．An Important Study |
【推荐2】Creative people are more likely to make the most of their idle (空闲的) time during a typical day by exploring their mind, a new study by University of Arizona researchers suggests.
In the study, the researchers divided the study into two parts. For the first experiment, the researchers asked each participant to sit alone in a room for 10 minutes without any access to digital devices. In the absence of any particular prompt (提示), the participants were asked to speak out their thoughts aloud in real time. The recorded files from 81 participants were then analyzed.
The researchers assessed the participants’ creativity through a thinking test, a lab-based verbal test that measures a person’s ability to think outside of the box. Participants who performed well in the thinking test had thoughts that flowed freely and were associated with one another, often indicated by phrases such as “this reminds me of” or “speaking of which”.
“While many participants had a tendency to jump between seemingly unrelated thoughts, creative individuals showed signs of thinking more associatively,” Raffaeli said, who was a senior author of the paper.
The first experiment also found that creative people were more engaged in their thoughts when they were left alone without distractions (干扰), such as the cellphone and Internet. “Creative people rated themselves as being less bored, even over those 10 minutes. They also spoke more words overall, which indicated that their thoughts were more likely to move freely,” Raffaeli said.
To further prove their initial findings, the researchers extended their study in the context of a much larger span of time—from 2020 to 2023 when many people were alone with their thoughts more often. For the second experiment, over 2,600 adults answered questions through a smartphone app called Mind Window. Participants who self-identified as being creative reported being less bored and more engaged in their thoughts during that period.
The researchers are continuing this line of work using their Mind Window app. They encourage people to download and use the app to help scientists understand how people across the world think in their everyday lives. “Understanding why different people think the way they do may lead to promising interventions to improve health and well-being,” Raffaeli said.
1. What were the participants asked to do in the first experiment?| A．Play digital devices for just 10 minutes. |
| B．Voice their thoughts quickly when asked. |
| C．Observe and record each other’s performance. |
| D．Make self-assessment in a thinking test. |
| A．They often had associated ideas. |
| B．They thought of anything as a reminder. |
| C．They preferred to sit alone without being distracted. |
| D．They tended to jump between unrelated thoughts. |
| A．To analyze their own thoughts. | B．To try out the function of the app. |
| C．To keep track of their thinking. | D．To improve their own mental well-being. |
| A．Idle Time Makes Creative People |
| B．Creative Thoughts Appear in Idle Time |
| C．Creative People Are Less Affected by Distraction |
| D．Creative People Enjoy Idle Time More Than Others |
【推荐3】The New Year is a time for celebrations for almost everyone around the world. In Britain, people go to pubs and nightclubs to dance the old year away, and to welcome in the new one at midnight.
In recent years, street parties have become more popular. Thousands of people gather in squares, main streets or on the river banks to listen to bands playing and to see fireworks displays.
For people who stay at home, most are attracted by the special, live New Year shows on TV. They are waiting for the countdown, along with the presenters, from 10 to 1 as the last seconds of the old year tick away and the bells of the New Year are rung.
In Scotland people visit their neighbors and drink, dance on New Year’s Eve. If you’re invited to a Scottish home that night, it’s important to know what to bring with you: a lump of coal, some shortbread and some whisky.
The coal shows warmth, so you’re wishing that the people you visit will have enough heat in the coming year. The shortbread represents food, so you’re hoping that the people will have enough to eat in the New Year. Some Scots call whisky “the water of life”, so when you hand over your bottle to your hosts, it means you want them to have enough to drink over the next 12 months.
And there’s one more key task you still have to perform if you can. The first person to knock on a neighbor’s door is supposed to be a tall, dark and handsome man who will bring good luck to the household. But what if that’s not you? Well, don’t ring the bell just yet. Wait a while and the right person is sure to turn up soon!
1. People staying at home till midnight on New Year’s Eve are mostly ________.| A．learning to countdown numbers | B．talking with the presenters |
| C．enjoying the live TV programs | D．ringing the bells for New Year |
| A．Sharing good food and warmth. | B．Showing richness and generosity. |
| C．Helping those poor families. | D．Sending best wishes for the family. |
| A．a lump of coal | B．good luck |
| C．a bottle of whisky | D．some shortbread |
| A．British people will fire some fireworks in public places to celebrate the New Year |
| B．street concerts have become more popular on the midnight of the New Year Eve |
| C．British people hate to think of the old year and wish to dance it away quickly |
| D．people will stay at home doing nothing but wait for the bell of the New Year to ring |
