【推荐1】Now anyone can pretend to be Spider-Man by simply wearing a suit that lets you feel how close you are to a nearby object. It can even let the wearer control with their eyes closed.

The suit, called SpiderSense and built by Victor Mateevitsi of the University of Illinois inChicago, has small robotic arms with microphones that send out and pick upultrasonic reflections (超声波折射) from objects. When the ultrasound finds someone moving closer to the microphone, it “knows”. Seven arms are equipped across the suit to give the wearer as near to 360 degree ultrasound coverage as possible.

“When someone is hitting Spider-Man, he feels it and can avoid it. Our suit is the same idea,” says Mateevitsi. “SpiderSense could help blind people find their way more easily.” Mateevitsi tested the suit out on students, getting them to stand outside on campus, eyes covered, and “feel” for attackers getting close.Each wearer had ninja(忍者) cardboard throwing stars to use whenever they sensed someone getting close. “Ninety five percent of the time they were able to sense someone coming near and throw the star at them,” says Mateevitsi.

“I’m very excited about this,” says Gershon Dublon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who also works on other parts of the human body. “Mateevitsi’s work is a step on the road to giving humans truly integrated extrasensory perception (超感知).

Mateevitsi wants to use the suit, or just a few sensors on the arms and back, to increase cyclists’ awareness of other traffic on the road. SpiderSense is due to be presented at an international conference in Germany this year. The team now plans to add more sensors to the suit to increase its resolution. The team also plans to begin experiments on SpiderSense with blind people.

“We humans have the senses that we are born with and we can’t extend them,” Mateevitsi says. “But there are some threats which are very deadly, but we can’t sense them, like radiation(分辨率). Electronic sensors can feel those threats.”

1. How can SpiderSense help us in our daily life?

A．Make 360 degree turns.	B．Fight back when attacked.
C．Warn its wearer of a coming danger.	D．Send out and receive text messages.

2. What can we infer from Mateevsi’s test of SpiderSense?

A．It is of great fun.	B．It works well.
C．It reacts to blind people.	D．It is welcome on campus.

3. What can we learn about SpiderSense now?

A．It helps cyclists on the road.	B．It is still a Spider-Man idea.
C．It is at the development stage.	D．Its sensors send out radiation.

4. What type of text is this passage?

A．A science report.

B．A film review.

C．A medical record

D．A fairy tale.

【推荐3】Silence is unnatural to man. He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness. In between he does all he can to make a noise in the world, and he fears silence more than anything else. Even his conversation is an attempt to prevent a fearful silence. If he is introduced to another person, and a number of pauses occur in the conversation, he regards himself as a failure, a worthless person, and is full of envy of the emptiest headed chatterbox (喋喋不休的人). He knows that ninety-nine percent of human conversation means no more than the buzzing of a fly, but he is anxious to join in the buzz and to prove that he is a man and not a waxwork figure (蜡塑人像).
The aim of conversation is not, for the most part, to communicate ideas; it is to keep up the buzzing sound. There are, it must be admitted, different qualities of buzz; there is even a buzz that is as annoying as the continuous noise made by a mosquito (蚊子). But at a dinner party one would rather be a mosquito than a quiet person. Most buzzing, fortunately, is pleasant to the ear, and some of it is pleasant even to the mind. He would be a foolish man if he waited until he had a wise thought to take part in the buzzing -with his neighbors.
Those who hate to pick up the weather as a conversational opening seem to me not to know the reason why human beings wish 1:0 talk. Very few human beings join in a conversation in the hope of learning anything new. Some of them are content, if they are merely allowed to go on making a noise into other people's ears, though they have nothing to tell them except that they have seen two or three new, plays or that they had food in a Swiss hotel. At the end of an evening during which they have said nothing meaningful for a long time, they just prove themselves to be successful conservationists.
1. According to the author, people make conversation to        .

A．exchange ideas	B．prove their value
C．achieve success m life	D．overcome their fear of silence

2. By “the buzzing of a fly” (Para. 1), the author means“_____”.

A．the noise of an insect	B．a low whispering sound
C．meaningless talks	D．the voice of a chatterbox

3. According to the passage, people usually talk to their neighbors___ ．

A．about whatever they have prepared

B．about whatever they want to

C．in the hope of learning something new

D．in the hope of getting on well

4. What is the author's purpose in writing the passage?

A．To discuss why people like talking about weather.

B．To encourage people to join in conversations.

C．To persuade people to stop making noises.

D．To explain why people keep talking.

【推荐1】In America, parents tend to encourage their children to develop their potential (潜能) to the fullest extent. Fathers and mothers frequently teach their children both ambition and the confidence necessary to work toward their goals. American parents are always active in concentrating on what their kids can do, not what they can’t. As a result, millions of American boys and girls grow up hoping to become actors and athletes, diplomats and doctors. Many of them even want to become president.

American parents often encourage their children to become involved in extra activities of all types at school, such as student government, sports and music. They believe that only through taking part in these activities can their children become mature young adults.

As we all know, school work is important. But parents should realize that the social skills their children learn from natural conversations with each other are as important as schoolwork and the skills they will need in the future work. What’s more important in their work is that their children should have a sound knowledge of physics or the ability to communicate effectively.

As a rule, Chinese parents don’t educate their children about the same kind of ambition and confidence as Americans do, nor do they encourage the same level of participation in extra activities. Children are typically advised to study hard and pass exams. They have to spend a lot of time in doing much schoolwork every day. It is a great waste of time to do so.

Now more and more Chinese parents have recognized that they should pay attention to developing the potential of their children. I hope that leaders in Chinese educational circles should take some measures to develop the potential of their children. I am very confident about it.

1. From the passage, we know the American parents pay much more attention to       .

A．the social skills than Chinese parents

B．their children’s studying hard and well

C．what their children want but they can’t

D．extra activities than schoolwork

2. According to the passage, Chinese parents       .

A．know more than American parents to educate their children

B．owning ambition and confidence is necessary and important

C．pay much more attention to their children’s fine future

D．don’t encourage their children to participate in extra activities

3. From the passage, we can infer       .

A．American children are brave and adventurous

B．American children are more active in their studies

C．Chinese children have the ability to communicate effectively

D．something should be done to develop the potential of the children in China

4. What’s the writer’s attitude towards Chinese education reform?

A．Neutral.	B．Indifferent.
C．Positive.	D．Negative.

【推荐2】Sometimes children do not do what their parents tall them to do. When this happens, a parent tries to help the child to do the right thing. When this does not work, the parent usually punishes the child.

There are many things that a parent can do. One thing that people have done is to spank the child. When a parent spanks a child, they will use their hand or a hard object to strike them on their bottom. This is meant to show the child that they have done something wrong.

One parent remembers being spanked when he was a child. His parents used a wooden spoon. When he spanked his own children with his hand, he saw that he put a red mark on his child’s leg. He never did that again.

One problem with spanking is that it teaches the child to hit someone when they do not like what the other person is doing. Another problem with spanking is that the parent is usually angry and can hit the child too hard. Sometimes parents will use spanking for everything and not try other ways to get the child to do the right thing.

Many parents are not sure of what to do instead of spanking. Some people think that their religion(宗教)tells them that spanking is okay. Some think that the law lets them do it. The courts(法院)say that parents have the right to teach their children how to behave.

Other things should be tried before a parent decides to spank a child. Telling the child exactly what is expected of them can be one thing. Giving a child more than one choice is another thing that can be tried. Getting down to the child’s level and taking a more child-friendly approach (方法) can help as well.

1. According to the passage, when children do something wrong, one thing that parents usually do to punish them is to ______.

A．strike them on the bottom	B．try to help them do the right thing
C．teach them what to do	D．take them to court

2. What does the word “spank” mean?

A．打屁股

B．下跪

C．罚站

D．打手心

3. Which of the following is NOT the problem caused by spanking?

A．It teaches the child to hit others when they are angry.

B．The parent may get angry and hit the child too hard.

C．Sometimes parents may use spanking for everything.

D．It makes parents try other ways to make the child do right.

4. Which of the following can best describe the writer’s attitude towards spanking?

A．Favorable

B．Indifferent(不关心)

C．Interested

D．Unfavorable

5. From this passage, we know that ______.

A．good children always do the right thing

B．parents should try their best to avoid(避免)spanking their children

C．parents have no choice but to spank their children when they do something wrong

D．children can have more than one choice to avoid being spanked

【推荐3】As countless unmade beds and unfinished homework assignments prove, kids need rules. Yet how parents make demands can powerfully influence a child’s social skills, psychologists at the University of Virginia recently found after the conclusion on a study investigating the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Initially 184 13-year-olds filled out multiple surveys, including one to assess how often their parents employed psychologically controlling strategies, such as threatening to withdraw affection. The kids rated, for example how typical it would be for Dad to suggest that “if I really cared for him, I would not do things that caused him to worry” or for Mom to become “less friendly when I did not see things her way.”

The researchers followed up with the subjects at ages 18 and 21, asking the young adults to bring along a close friend. These pairs were asked to answer questions that were purposefully written to cause a difference of opinion. “We wanted to see whether they could handle a disagreement in a healthy way,” says study leader Barbara Oudekerk, now at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Statistics.

In the October issue of Child Development, Oudekerk and her colleagues report that the 13-year-olds who had highly controlling parents floundered in friendly disagreements at age 18. They had difficulty stating their opinions in a confident, reasoned manner in comparison to the kids without controlling parents. And when they did speak up, they often failed to express themselves in warm and productive ways.

The researchers suspect that controlling parents affect their child’s ability to learn how to argue his or her own viewpoint in other relationships. Although parents do need to set boundaries， dominating strategies imply that any disagreement will damage the bond itself. Separate findings suggest that parents who explain the reasons behind their rules and turn disagreements into conversations leave youngsters better prepared for future disagreements.

The consequences of tense or dominating relationships appear to worsen with time. This study also found that social difficulties at 18 predicted even poorer communication abilities at age 21. Psychologist Shmuel Shulman of Bar-llan University in Israel, who did not participate in the work, thinks these conclusions convincingly reveal how relationship patterns “carry forward” into new friendships.

1. What did the researchers from the University of Virginia do in their research?

A．They asked kids about how they got along with their parents.

B．They surveyed some parents about what rules kids needed.

C．They inquired into what the kids’ friends thought of them.

D．They traced their subjects for nearly eight years.

2. The phrase “floundered in” (in paragraph 4) is closest in meaning to ___.

A．struggled with

B．dealt with

C．looked over

D．took over

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Shmuel Shulman thinks more evidence is needed for the new research.

B．Controlling parents’ influence on their kids gets stronger as time goes by.

C．21-year-olds are more eager to be free of parents’ control than 18-year-olds.

D．Kids can handle disagreement better if their parents get along well with each other.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．Pushy parents could harm their kids’ social skills.

B．Kids should learn what friendly disagreements are.

C．Parents; affection matters in terms of kids; personality.

D．Few parents explain the reasons why they set boundaries.