Elias Howe is always used to going to bed at 4 o’clock in the morning. Working all night became his living habit. Who’s Elias Howe? You may never hear of him. He was born in America. The sewing (缝纫) machine was invented by him.
Over 100 years ago, without modern machines. people had to do the sewing by hand. Elias decided to design a machine to do the sewing instead of our hands. However, he had a trouble. He couldn’t get the thread (线) to run around the needle (针). Inventing sewing machine was his dream. So he did not give up. He kept thinking about how to solve this problem.
Once he was tired, he slept in bed. He had a dream. In the dream he was caught by a king. The king ordered him to build a perfect sewing machine, or the king would kill him. Elias met the same problem as before. The king was so angry that he ordered his soldiers to kill him. The soldiers raised spears (长矛) and came up to him. Suddenly Elias noticed something. There was a hole in the tip (尖端) of each spear.
Before the spears stuck to his body, Elias woke up from the dream. And he realized that he had found the answer to the problem. Instead of getting the thread to run around the needle, he made it run through a small hole in the tip of the needle. A simple thought finally made Elias invent the first sewing machine.
1. Why did Elias go to bed at about 4 o’clock a.m.?| A．Because he got used to working at night. | B．Because he liked to play at night. |
| C．Because he had sleeping problems. | D．Because of the noise of the machine. |
| A．Elias’s parents lived on sewing. |
| B．People preferred to do sewing by hand over 100 years ago. |
| C．Elias wanted to invent the sewing machine to make money. |
| D．Elias had difficulty in inventing the sewing machine. |
| A．Problem. | B．Hole. | C．Dream. | D．Spear. |
| A．Elias was killed. | B．The king was killed. |
| C．Elias had a good thought. | D．Elias caught the soldiers. |
| A．Sleeping can also solve the problem. |
| B．Elias Howe’s dream came true. |
| C．Working at night is helpful in new inventions. |
| D．If you want to invent something, you should have a good dream. |
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| Morpher People refuse to wear helmets(头盔) because they’re thick and heavy. Morpher is a bike helmet made of plastic. It is just as strong as traditional helmets, but it can be folded almost completely flat, making it easier to carry. Morpher may be available for sale in stores in the near future. | HyperAdapt Have you ever seen the movie Back to the Future? Maybe everyone wants the pair of shoes in the movie that can tighten or loosen by themselves. Now, thanks to the Shoe Factory, the dream is realized. When you push a button on the shoe, HyperAdapt can tighten or loosen around the feet. |
| Flyte Flyte is a light bulb that can float(漂浮) and turn. Flyte has been popular with most people since it came out in January. The company also introduced a lot of similar products, including a planter, Lyfe, which came out in June. | Little Printer It looks lovely and is called Little Printer. This machine can print news headlines(摘要) , riddles and other things on a roll(卷) of paper. If you want to make your own little newspaper, don’t forget to use it. |
| A．steel | B．plastic | C．gold | D．wood |
| A．To protect our heads more safely. |
| B．To tighten or loosen by themselves around the feet. |
| C．To float and turn in the water. |
| D．To print news headlines, riddles and other things. |
| A．钉子 | B．按钮 | C．图案 | D．形状 |
| A．Morpher. | B．Little Printer. | C．Flyte. | D．HyperAdapt. |
| A．Maybe everyone wants the pair of shoes in the movie Back to the Future. |
| B．You can make your own little newspaper with the Little Printer. |
| C．Flyte has been popular with most people since it came out in February. |
| D．Morpher can be folded almost completely flat, making it easier to carry. |
Water shortages influence so many lives. The company Watergen produced a new machine to help solve this problem. The machine, called GENNY, is small enough to be used in a home or office but can produce up to 30 liters of water a day. More importantly, it can produce clean water out of air.
GENNY takes air in and passes it through a filter (过滤器) to remove dust and dirt. The filter is powerful enough to work even in areas with high air pollution. The air then passes through a room where heating and cooling turns steam in the air into water. This water is then passed through several more filters, and minerals are added to make it healthier and better-tasting. Finally, the water is kept in a tank where it is continually recycled to keep it fresh.
The heating and cooling process, called GENius, is far more energy-efficient than other technologies that produce water from air. It produces four to five times more water per kilowatt-hour (千瓦时). Watergen has other products that use this same technology in a larger size, the largest of which can produce up to 5,000 liters of water per day.
As a company, Watergen aims to provide drinking water to the billions of people who don’t have safe drinking water at home. Last year Watergen’s large-size products were given to the local government in Brazil, Vietnam and India.
Watergon tries to help the environment by reducing waste caused by plastic bottles. People can put the water from GENNY into reusable bottles so that plastic ones don’t get used and thrown away. It also calls for saving energy. There are even two types of GENNY: one that uses the electrical power supply and another that runs on energy from solar power. The latter one is particularly useful for villages or other areas not connected to an electrical network.
Watergen’s technology is sure to help many people around the world as well as help take care of our planet.
1. What does the underlined word “it” refer to in paragraph 1?| A．The latest technology. | B．The company Watergen. |
| C．The new machine GENNY. | D．The heating and cooling process GENius. |
a. Some minerals are added into the water.
b. It takes air in and passes it through a filter.
c. The water is stored in a tank to keep it fresh.
d. The water passed through several more filters.
e. The heating and cooling turns steam into water.
| A．b-e-a-c-d | B．b-e-d-a-c | C．e-b-d-a-c | D．e-b-a-c-d |
| A．It produces clean and safe water and air. |
| B．It uses solar power to turn air into water. |
| C．It stops people from using bottles to drink. |
| D．It solves the problem of water shortage in the world. |
| A．Water from Air | B．Clean Air out of Water |
| C．Ways of Turning Air into Water | D．New Technology Saves the World |
【推荐3】In many science fiction movies, there is often a scene where a character speaks to computer AI, and then the AI creates a beautiful 3-D image (图像). It’s quite amazing, right? What is happening in the real world is that humans use language input (输入), and then the computer AI understands the language, creates an image and displays it to humans. This technology is AI painting, which is to change language into images through AI understanding.
AI painting is not new in recent years, but since the beginning of last year, the AI painting model based on text-to-image generation (生成) has developed fast. Starting from Disco Diffusion in February, DALL E2 and Midjourney in April, two major models Imagen and Parti were made public in May and June, and at the end of July, Stable Diffusion was born.
When you compare the AI painting at the beginning of 2022 with the present one, you can see a huge difference. Disco Diffusion could create some simple pictures, but it was basically impossible for it to generate human faces. However, only two months later, DALL E2 could already generate facial features in an exact way. Right now, the powerful Stable Diffusion has made tremendous progress in both the sophistication (复杂巧妙) and the speed of the painting. The quality of AI-produced works has been improved at lightning speed and the drawing time has been shortened from hours to just a few seconds.
In the near future, what will happen in AI painting, or more broadly, in the field of AI-generated content, is full of excitement. Are you ready for an AI world?
1. The writer mentions a movie scene in Paragraph 1 to ________.| A．start a story | B．explain an idea | C．introduce a topic | D．discuss a problem |
a. show the picture b. produce an image
c. understand the meaning. d. receive the information
| A．a-c-b-d | B．d-c-b-a | C．d-a-b-c | D．a-d-c-b |
| A．3. | B．4. | C．5. | D．6. |
| A．平稳的 | B．缓慢的 | C．微小的 | D．极大的 |
| A．Bored. | B．Excited. | C．Satisfied. | D．Uncertain. |
【推荐1】I can still remember my first time to drive. Mom drove the car to a quiet, black road with a wall built with old, river rocks along the side. Mom knew there were no cars on the road that day. So she stopped the car with a smile and changes seats with me. Then she told me to start the car, put it into drive,and push on the gas pedal(汽门). I was excited. I pushed on the gas pedal hard and the car ran forward. However, before I could turn the wheel the car hit the stone wall.
I stopped the car and looked over at my mom. She seemed to be angry. Slowly she opened her door and looked at the scratched paint(划痕)along the side of the car. Then she walked quietly around the car to the driver's side door. I kept waiting for her to shout at me but she just said, “Well, that's enough for today. We'll try again tomorrow.”
As I look back on that day, I am surprised the kindness and patience my mom showed me then. I made a great mistake, but she didn't shout at me and continued to teach me how to drive. She gave me a wonderful example that day of love.
In the years that followed I made mistakes many times in many ways, but each time l could feel Mom's love around me and could hear my mom’s soft voice saying, “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
1. The writer's mom drove the car to a quiet, black road because__________.| A．There were many cars there. | B．it was much safer there |
| C．she couldn’t find another place. | D．it was free to learn to drive there |
| A．The writer was not good at driving. | B．The writer had no interest in driving. |
| C．The writer’s mother didn’t care about him. | D．The writer’s mother shouted at him when he made mistakes. |
| A．She isn't friendly to everyone. | B．She is full of love and patience. |
| C．She is easy to give up trying | D．She never makes any mistakes. |
| I want to share with you a movie named The Orphan (孤儿) of Zhao. When watching the play, I got lost in the wonderful story. The story is about a son avenging (替 ……复仇) the deaths of his family. All the actors acted so well that every character seemed so real. —Cai Yiting,14. Guangdong |
| My favorite artist is Ryuichi Sakamoto. Born in 1952, he is a Japanese musician. Sakamoto is famous for his special way of playing music. In 2020, he brought out a 30-minute online concert to Chinese people. Each time I hear his music, I feel warm and touched. —Zhao Yining,14, Beijing |
| The Rookte is my favorite TV show. It’s about a man called John Nolan. At age 40, he became the oldest rookie in the police station. At first, he met many problems. Luckily, there were some rookies like him and they worked together to become better. —Li Shuhe,14, Shanxi |
| A group of bad people say they will become good. The Bad Guys tells a story about this. I like this movie because it makes me think about how we can break prejudice (偏见). —Qin Shuang,15, Shanghai |
1. Ryuichi Sakamoto gave a 30-minute concert in 2020 ________.
| A．on TV | B．on the radio | C．on the Internet |
| A．hard | B．exciting | C．relaxing |
| A．staff | B．newcomer | C．skilled person |
| A．the Rookie tells about breaking prejudice |
| B．Ryuichi Sakamoto is a special Japanesc actor |
| C．Cai Yiting likes the movie The Orphan of Zhao |
| A．Travel | B．Culture | C．Sports |
【推荐3】Once, there was a young man who looked down on the old. He always thought the old lived a useless life. He also did this to his father. He often ignored (忽视) his father’s efforts to him and the family.
One day, the father and the son happened to meet each other in the field. The son suggested that they should take a walk together. As they walked, a beautiful garden came into their sight. The son pointed to one of the prettiest flowers and said, “We young people are like this flower, so healthy, so fragrant (芬芳), and full of spirit.” He continued, “What about you? Just like the falling leaves from a dying tree.”
Hearing this, the father smiled, but said nothing. They continued walking in silence. When they passed a store, the father stopped and went in. He bought a walnut (核桃) and showed it to his son. The father said, “We old are like this walnut. We’ve experienced many hard events in life. So we built up such a hard shell (壳), and at the same time we also built up a nice fruit, so full-grown.”
“But every fruit was born by flower,” said the son. “Yes, but not every flower can produce fruit…”
Indeed in our family, our parents are not useless lives or falling leaves, but the experienced (饱满的) walnuts. They protect us all the time and all the way, just like old hard walnuts. They are the ones we should thank forever. And we should try to be a flower that can produce good fruit.
根据短文内容判断正（A）误（B）。
1. The young man’s father looked down on the young.
2. One day, the son invited his father to have a walk in the field.
3. The father was sad after hearing his son’s words in the garden but said nothing.
4. Our parents are not useless lives or falling leaves, but the experienced walnuts.
5. From the passage, we know that we should thank our parents.
