【推荐1】The ride-sharing company Uber has removed its self-driving cars from the streets of San Francisco, California. The action came after a dispute between Uber and state officials over whether the vehicles needed special permits to operate.

Uber recently launched testing of its self-driving service in San Francisco. But shortly after the launch, California's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) told the company to stop the self-driving vehicles. State officials said the Uber cars needed the same special permit given to about 20 other companies testing self-driving technology in California. Uber argued that its technology does not make vehicles fully autonomous, and so the special permit was not needed. It added that all of Uber's "self-driving" cars have a driver sitting in the passenger seat to take over if needed.

The head of Uber's self-driving technology, Anthony Levandowski, explained the company's position in a blog post. He said the self-driving Uber vehicles do use high-technology tools to assist drivers. But they are not fully autonomous and require a driver to be at the controls at all times. He compared the technology to solar carmaker Tesla's advanced driver assist tools. Telsa's Autopilot system allows its cars to steer in a lane, change lanes, and speed up or slow down based on nearby traffic. The company tells drivers that, when using Autopilot, they should still always be ready to take control of the vehicle. Vehicles equipped with these high-tech driver assist tools do not need a special permit to operate in California.

It's hard to understand why the DMV would seek to require self-driving Ubers to get permits when it accepts that Tesla's autopilot technology does not need them," Levandowski wrote. San Francisco's mayor, Ed Lee, praised the DMV for stopping Uber's self-driving vehicles. He said he supports self-driving development and testing. But only under conditions that put human bicyclists' and pedestrian safety first."

1. What does the underlined word "dispute" in Paragraph 1 mean?

A．Discussion.	B．Disagreement.
C．Fighting.	D．Meeting.

2. Why does Uber say that the special permit was not needed?

A．Because Uber's "self driving" cars are fully autonomous.

B．Because there are passenger seats in Uber's "self-driving" cars.

C．Because no drivers are needed in some Uber's "self-driving" cars.

D．Because Uber's "self-driving" cars can be operated by humans when necessary.

3. What can we know from the passage?

A．Uber's self-driving cars need human drivers.

B．Telsa's Autopilot needs special permits too.

C．Uber's self-driving cars are completely autonomous.

D．Telsa's Autopilot system is better than Uber's self-driving technology.

4. What can we infer from Ed Lee's words?

A．He doesn't think DMV is right.

B．Uber's self-driving cars should be supported.

C．Uber's serf-driving cars are not safe enough.

D．One should be careful while walking or cycling in streets.

【推荐2】Steel is a hard metal that people use to make many different products. Car bodies, bridges, building frames, and containers are just a few of the things made from steel.     1     But steel is better than iron in many ways. Steel is stronger but lighter than iron. Steel also lasts longer than iron.

    2     Then they add carbon to the liquid iron. They may also add other materials to make different types of steel. For example, steel with added chromium（铬）is called stainless steel. It will not rust（生锈）or stain. Finally, workers use machines to cool the liquid steel into bars or long sheets.     3    

People made the first steel as early as 1400 BC. Ancient people heated iron inside a pile of burning charcoal（木炭）.     4    . The result was not the same as modern steel, but it was stronger than regular iron.

In the 1800s people began to use huge ovens to make large amounts of steel. In the late 1800s builders used steel to make some of the first skyscrapers.     5    . In the 1900s new processes made steel-making easier. Today steel remains one of the most popular building materials in the world.

A．This added carbon to the iron.

B．Steel is quite different from iron.

C．The hardened steel may then be made into products.

D．Steel is basically iron mixed with a little carbon.

E．Then they will be cooled and put on the market.

F．To make steel, workers hear iron until it melts.

G．They also used steel to make large, modern bridges.

【推荐3】The modern day users of smartphones and tablets are soon going to experience something incredible in the coming few months with the advent of Google Glass. With Google Glass, you would be able to actually wear a computing device and carry out all the things, which you used to do over devices like smartphones and tablets.

■ Small but strong hardware to connect you to the world

It is really amazing to see how Google Glass manages to include all the features in a very small, strong and yet lightweight frame. It is backed with Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, Touchpad, Camera, Microphone, and Speakers. A main piece, a small size screen, will show you all the information. You have the choice of using Google Hangout to enjoy a group conference and carry out anything without actually being limited to your desks. You can check your text messages along with attaching the pictures and videos without actually removing your smartphone device from your pocket.

■ Google Glass at your command

The Axiom—“your wish is my command” —seems to be true with Google Glass as it works on a voice command. The built-in microphone backed by “Google Now” simply connects you directly to your favorite search engine. All you need to do is to say “Okay, Glass” to start working with it. You can start working with it by simply tilting(使倾斜) your head.

■________________________________________________________

As Google Glass is backed up with GPS chip, it can help you to navigate using Google Maps. This will simply avoid bringing out your smartphone from your pocket and check the locations while you drive any vehicle. Whether you are moving in an overcrowded place or hiking at the countryside, this device remains very much handful for you.

1. Which of the following best describes Google Glass?

A．Smart and useful.

B．Handy and comfortable.

C．Cheap but creative.

D．Awkward but practical.

2. What is the main piece of Google Glass?

A．Wi-Fi.	B．Screen.
C．Microphone.	D．Bluetooth.

3. If you need to hold a group conference, you may use ________.

A．Axiom	B．Google Hangout
C．Google Now	D．Google Maps

4. Which of the following titles may match the last paragraph?

A．Leave your smartphone behind

B．Life will be flexible

C．People are never bored

D．You are never lost

【推荐2】As every mobile-phone owner knows, after a year or so the battery starts to fade and the beast needs recharging more frequently. That is a nuisance, but a phone’s batteries can be replaced fairly cheaply or the whole handset traded in for the latest model. An electric car, however, is a much bigger investment. Batteries are its priciest component, representing around 30% of an average of mid-size vehicle. Apart from increasing the risk of running out of juice and leaving a driver stranded, a deteriorating battery quickly destroys a car’s second-hand value.

To provide buyers with some peace of mind, car makers guarantee their batteries, typically for eight years or around 200,000 km. Producers are now, though, planning to go much further than that, with the launch of “million-mile” (1.6km-kilometre) batteries. Elon Musk has hinted that Tesla has a million-mile battery in the works. And over in Detroit, General Motors (GM) is in the final stages of developing an advanced battery which it says has similar longevity.

“It’s a great catchphrase; the million-mile battery,” says George Crabtree, director of the Joint Centre for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago. “But the fact that you can drive a million miles may not be the most relevant parameter to look at.” Regular fast-charging reduces battery life, as do overcharging and deep discharging. Driving in extremely hot or cold weather doesn’t help either. And battery life will diminish even if you just leave the car in the garage. The real point of a million-mile battery is that the technological advances required to make it possible will deal with these things as well.

The lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries which power electric cars age in two ways: with time and with use. Battery-makers-call time-dependent ageing “calendar ageing”. It is consequence of the gradual degradation of some of the materials employed in battery construction, which reduces a battery’s ability to hold a charge. Leaving a car with a fully rather than partly charged battery, for example, can increase the rate of calendar ageing. Use-dependent ageing is a consequence of the number of discharge-recharge cycles a battery goes through. It is caused by the complex chemical reactions that take place when a battery is operating. Some of these are essential to a battery’s job of storing and releasing energy.

Battery technology is improving all the time. As a consequence, so are calendar and use-dependent lifetimes. Getting direct experience of how electric cars are used is helping researchers come up with ways to mitigate (缓和) some of the side reactions, says Tim Grewe, the head of GM’s electrification strategy. The company employs remote “telematics” monitoring to keep track of how batteries are performing in its cars, and also takes back some batteries from high-mileage drivers and those living in extreme environments, such as deserts and mountainous regions, for analysis.

Dealing with impurities that get into batteries helps to extend their lives. Water, for example, reacts with salts in the electrolyte to form an acid, which attacks the electrodes. To prevent this, GM has developed an addictive made from a type of material called a zeolite. Zeolites are molecular sponges. GM’s version serves to mop up any moisture which enters a battery cell.

Adding a little aluminium to a nickelcobalt-manganese cathode, a type that is widely used in Li-ion batteries, save on cobalt, the most expensive ingredient in a battery. But the aluminium delivers other benefits as well. It boosts the battery's energy density, meaning a car can travel farther on a single charge. It also make the battery last longer.

As a marketing device, the million-mile battery will give electric-car buyers more confidence that their batteries are robust. And by no means are million-mile batteries the limit of engineers’ aspirations. The next objective is to replace Li-ions’ liquid electrolytes with solid ones. That would keep the ions under stricter control and allow even longer driving ranges. This could make a two million-mile battery a feasible objective. If that day comes, the tables would have been turned. From being the first part of a car to fail, its battery will have come the last.

1. What does the underlined sentence in the first paragraph mean?

A．It is more profitable to invest in an electric car than in a mobile phone.

B．Spending more money on an electric car can increase its second hand value.

C．It’s much more costly to replace the failed batteries of an electric car with new ones.

D．Compared with electric cars, batteries are of less importance to mobile phones.

2. According to the passage, which of the following is the least likely to reduce an electric car’s battery life?

A．Unplugging an electric car once it’s fully charged.

B．Often charging the car in “fast” mode to save time.

C．Driving an electric car on sweltering summer days.

D．Leaving the car in the parking lot for a long time.

3. Which of the following is FALSE regarding the measures researchers take to prolong a battery’s lifetime?

A．Monitoring and studying batteries’ performance in long-distance traveling.

B．Adding zeolite to encourage the acidifying chemical reaction in the battery.

C．Using aluminium to improve the battery’s performance enabling the car to travel farther.

D．Keeping the battery partly charged to reduce its rate of “calendar ageing”.

4. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that__________.

A．The current technology enables an electric car to drive a million miles on a single charge

B．Electric car engineers are always on the go to develop batteries with greater longevity

C．Policies on the choice of battery materials will be tightened to control the traveling range

D．Drivers of future electric cars will no longer be worried about battery failure

【推荐2】Gottfried Wilhelm von Liebniz was a philosopher and mathematician in search of a model. In the late 1600s Leibniz decided there was a need for a new, purer arithmetic than our common decimal（十进制）system. He got his inspiration from the 5000-year-old book that is at the heart of Chinese philosophy：the I-Ching, or Book of Changes.

This ancient text was such an influence on Liebniz that he titled his article on the new arithmetic “Explanation of a new arithmetic and the ancient Chinese figure of Fu X”. Fu Xi was the legendary first author of the I-Ching. The arithmetic that Liebniz described was binary（二进制）code, which is used in almost every modern computer, from iPhones to China’s own Tihane-2 supercomputer.

To figure out what Liebniz learned in the I-Ching, we need to understand something that most of us have taken for granted. When we listen to an MP3, look at a digital photo or watch the latest TV drama, we are experiencing a digital representation of reality. That representation is basically just a string of binary signals that are commonly known as 1s and 0s. What Liebniz’s gained from the book was that even the most complex reality could be represented in the binary form as 1s and 0s.

In the philosophy of the I-Ching, reality is not entirely real. It is something more like a dream. This dream of reality arises from the binaries of Yin and Yang, as they play out countless combinations, practically everything in the universe. It’s not surprising then, from the l-Ching’s perspective, that anything in the dream of reality can be represented in a string of 1s and 0s, processed by a computer.

The I-Ching was far more ambitious than the current practical applications of binary code. It is claimed that the I-Ching represents nothing less than the basic situation of human life itself. As a system for predicting the future, the I-Ching might disappoint, but as a way of questioning your own unconscious mind, it can be remarkably useful.

The I-Ching’s teachings also contain warnings about our digital revolution. Binary code, powered by modern computers, has an amazing capacity to represent reality. However, the ancient authors of the I-Ching might have understood its potential-and its dangers-even better than we now do.

So when scientific thinkers ask whether computers can create “virtual realities” or “artificial intelligence”, they are missing the point. Of course, we can create ever deeper and more complex layers of the dream of reality. The real question is, can we wake up from the dream we’ re in already?

1. Which of the following is TRUE about binary codes?

A．They share the same source with the decimal system.

B．They can form numerous combinations.

C．They are documented in the Book of Changes.

D．They are first discovered by Fu Xi.

2. In paragraph 3, the underlined part refers to the fact that ______.

A．media products are digitally represented using 1s and 0s.

B．TV dramas and digital photos are not worth seeing.

C．Reality is made more complex by binary codes.

D．Licbniz’s model is hardly understandable.

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Computers’ ability to represent reality is quite limited.

B．Human life is now in grave danger according to the I-Ching.

C．We have yet to understand the complete teachings of the I-Ching.

D．The I-Ching is perfectly accurate in predicting the future.

4. Which of the following is the best title?

A．The Ancient Book of Wisdom at the Heart of Every Computer

B．The Supercomputer that Employs Ancient Chinese Culture

C．The Father of Binary Code, Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz

D．The Origin of Eastern and Western Philosophy

【推荐3】In a natural disaster — a hurricane, flood, volcanic eruption, or other catastrophes (灾难) — minutes and even seconds of warning can make the difference between life and death. Because of this, scientists are working to use the latest technological advances to predict when and where disasters will happen. They are also studying how to analyse and communicate this information in the best way once it is obtained.

On September 29,1998. Hurricane Georges made landfall (登陆) Biloxi, Mississippi, after damaging several islands of the Caribbean badly with rains and winds up to 160 km per hour. Few people lost their lives along the Gulf Coast of the United States.

This was a very different outcome (结果) from 1900, when a powerful Gulf Coast hurricane had made an unexpected direct hit on Galveston, Texas, killing at least 6,000 people.

Vastly improved hurricane warnings explain the different circumstances (状况) at either end of the 20th century — residents of Galveston had no advance warning that a storm was approaching, while residents of Biloxi had been warned days in advance, allowing for safety precautions (预防措施).

While people in Biloxi were thankful for the advance warning, some residents of New Orleans, Louisiana were less satisfied. A day before Hurricane Georges made landfall, forecasters were predicting that the hurricane had a good chance of striking New Orleans. Because much of New Orleans lies below sea level, the city is at risk from flooding. Emergency management officials must begin evacuations (疏散) well before a storm strikes.

But evacuation costs money: Businesses close, tourists leave, and citizens take precautionary measures. The mayor of New Orleans estimated that his city’s preparation for Georges cost more than 50 million. After Georges missed New Orleans, some residents questioned the value of the hurricane forecasts in the face of such high costs.

The different views on the early warnings for Hurricane Georges show some of the complexities related to predicting disasters. Disaster prediction is a process of providing scientific information to the government officials and other decision makers who must respond to those predictions.

1. What is the purpose of disaster prediction according to the passage?

A．To identify the cause of disasters.

B．To save people’s lives and property.

C．To prevent natural disasters happening.

D．To apply technology to disaster prediction.

2. Which of the following statement is true?

A．Hurricane Georges hit Biloxi unexpectedly in 1998.

B．Severe damage was caused in Hurricane Georges in 1998.

C．Few people lost their lives in the Gulf Coast hurricane in 1900.

D．Advance warning made a difference to the people in Biloxi in 1998.

3. The residents of New Orleans were less satisfied because ________.

A．the hurricane did not hit the city

B．their preparations were made in vain

C．the hurricane warning arrived rather late

D．they suffered from a heavy hurricane attack

4. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．The different ways of disaster prediction.

B．Technological advances in disaster prediction.

C．The benefits and preparations of disaster prediction.

D．The importance and uncertainty of disaster prediction.