Do you like to start your day with a cup of coffee? It cheers people up and helps in burning fat. However, the hobby also brings problems. One study shows that about 50 billion single-use coffee cups are thrown away in the US every year, while another believes the number is closer to 130 million. Whatever the actual number is, it is clear that our use of coffee cups is bad for the environment.
Fortunately, some companies are trying their best to solve the problem. GaeaStar is one of them. It is trying to create single-use clay coffee cups to take the place of plastic ones.
The cups are suitable for both cold and hot drinks. They are made of clay, water and salt, so they will produce no waste. You even don’t need to throw the cups into a rubbish bin. You can simply throw them onto the ground and smash (粉碎) them. After all, they come from earth and return to earth in the same form. Recycling is no longer required.
In fact, the idea of using clay as a solution (解决方法) to the problem isn’t new. But GaeaStar connects it with new technology. Using 3D printers, it can make the cup in 10 seconds. Its CEO says that printing a clay cup uses 60% less energy than creating a plastic or paper cup. This is an example of how new technology brings old ideas back to life.
If you are interested in GaeaStar’s special cups, visit the Verve Coffee Shop in California!
1. The numbers in Paragraph 1 are mentioned to show ______.| A．the advantages (益处) of drinking coffee | B．the changes of coffee cups in the US |
| C．the problem caused by people’s love for coffee | D．the increase in the number of coffee drinkers |
| A．Luckily. | B．Hardly. | C．Especially. | D．Surprisingly. |
| A．Solutions to the problem of plastic pollution. |
| B．Examples of using technology to solve problems. |
| C．How GaeaStar uses 3D printers to make paper cups. |
| D．How GaeaStar connects an old idea with new technology. |
| A．www.travelers.com | B．www.techtimes.com |
| C．www.chinaculture.org | D．www.grammarbook.com |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Are you looking for a special place for your holiday? How about having fun in space? Lucky for you, a US company is going to build a space hotel.
The Orbital Assembly Company will start the work in 2025, and open the hotel in 2027. It will be able to carry up to 400 people. The hotel will be shaped like London Eye, a large sky wheel with 24 space pods around it. Each pod is 24 meters long and 12 meters wide.
The company will plan everything for the tourists. The pods will be used for restaurants, bars, gyms, labs and so on. There are even private rooms that people can buy. And the company hasn’t decided the price for that yet.
The space hotel will allow you to enjoy 1/6 of the earth’s gravity. When you are there, something really fun can happen. Less gravity means you can do things like jumping higher, lifting heavier things and playing basketball in a new way.
“In future, going to space will just be another choice for holidays, just like going to Disney World.” says the CEO of the company. He says the hotel may even have a concert hall and a movie theatre.
Are you ready to try the space hotel? Let’s wait and see.
1. What might the space hotel be like?A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．The hotel will open in three years. | B．People can buy some of the rooms. |
| C．It is fun to live there with no gravity. | D．There is a Disney World in the hotel. |
| A．A New Choice for Holidays. | B．Get Ready for Travelling. |
| C．The Orbital Assembly Company. | D．Enjoy Sports in the Space Hotel. |
【推荐2】Type in “A cat wants to go to space” and ask a robot to write a bedtime story. Just one second later, you’ll get the story of Max, who made his way through many difficulties to sing among the stars.
This robot writer is real. It’s called ChatGPT. From writing a story to making music, ChatGPT has surprised the world since it came out in late 2022 by the US company OpenAI. It can translate (翻译) languages, talk with people and write songs, poems and even jokes. It’s one of the most powerful AI of this kind, with the complete writing abilities of a real person.
People around the world have tried ChatGPT and posted their results on social media. Some used it to write history reports, some asked it to take notes of speeches, and some even got advice on how to communicate with people at a party.
ChatGPT comes along at a time when AI is becoming able to do creative tasks. There is no doubt that ChatGPT is a powerful tool. However, some schools in US, Australia,and France banned (禁止) the use of ChatGPT. The move comes out of worries that the tool could make it easier for students to cheat on homework. Some also worry that ChatGPT could be used to provide improper information.
“It does not build critical (批判的)-thinking and problem-solving skills,” said Jenna Lyle, the deputy press secretary of the New York City Department of Education. “The articles it creates are difficult to tell from those made by humans. This causes many problems, such as the issue of copyright (版权). Since ChatGPT is mainly trained using words from the Internet, it can also pick up on the Internet’s biases (偏见) about some groups. These are all the things that depend on humans to solve.”
1. The cat story was written to ________.| A．show what creative work ChatGPT can do |
| B．introduce a cat who wants to go to space |
| C．introduce a set of bedtime books |
| D．show how ChatGPT creates scientific study |
| A．the weakness of ChatGPT | B．the most popular use of ChatGPT |
| C．what people think about ChatGPT | D．how ChatGPT has helped people so far |
| A．it makes teachers worry about their students |
| B．it hardly provides proper information |
| C．students may use it to cheat on homework |
| D．students depend too much on it |
| A．It is still under development. |
| B．It is the most powerful kind of AI. |
| C．It can take the place of humans someday. |
| D．People cannot tell the difference between ChatGPT and humans. |
| A．ChatGPT helps a cat go to space |
| B．ChatGPT brings about changes in the life |
| C．ChatGPT causes lots of problems |
| D．ChatGPT makes the life easy and colorful |
 | Gaode Map is one of the most professional mobile phone maps. It’s based on the location of life services and may be the most comprehensive (全面的), most informative (信息量大的) mobile phone map nowadays. |
 | This software (软件) is a mobile phone camera tool. It can help people who like both taking photos and making them into a comic style. It’s such an interesting application (应用程序) and is popular with the young. |
 | This software is suitable (合适的) for friends who are going to take exams, or for the users to remember more words. It’s designed (被设计) to be easily used by offering users pictures, sounds as well as short videos in English. |
 | How many steps did you take today? This app does not just mark down the number of steps you take. Your real steps can take you on a virtual (虚拟的) journey around the world. It can really give you the power (力量) to move ahead. |
| A．Gaode Map. | B．The camera app. | C．The 100 app. | D．The walking app. |
| A．Finding the way to a place. | B．Remembering words. | C．Taking pictures. | D．Marking down the steps. |
| A．The camera app is popular with the young. |
| B．The walking app can encourage you to move ahead. |
| C．Gaode Map is the most professional mobile phone map. |
| D．The 100 app provides the users with pictures, sounds and short videos. |
【推荐1】The Amazon might become grassland in a few years, a study says.
The Amazon is the world’s biggest rainforest. But over the years, climate change and human activities often make it “sick”. Usually, the rainforest can recover（修复）by itself.
Our planet is getting warmer. A special climate pattern（气候类型）gets stronger.
If we lose rainforests, what will happen?
The Amazon is like the lungs of our planet. The rich plants there take carbon dioxide（CO2）out of the air and make oxygen.
About 1 million indigenous people（原住民）live in the Amazon. They would lose their home.
The Amazon is also home to over 3 million animals and plants. Many of them could live nowhere else. They would very likely disappear.
| A．Why is it in poor “health”? |
| B．People cut down trees for wood. |
| C．It’s called “El Nino (厄尔尼诺)”. |
| D．But now, it takes more time for it to get better. |
| E．They make more than 20 percent of the planet’s oxygen. |
【推荐2】
Several cameras are built into the robot. The cameras facing the ground take photos to help the robot “see” the plants it passes.
The robot compares each photo to a library of plant photos to decide on which plants are weeds.
Robot arms move into position to give a small dose (剂量) of weedkiller on the weeds.
The robot is energy-friendly.
How the robot will develop
The scientists do not want to just stop at the achievement they have made.
Robots could be programmed to leave some harmless weeds in the fields to support wildlife living there. This will help create s more balanced ecosystem.
| A．How the robot works |
| B．It is powered by the energy from the sun. |
| C．But scientists have created a farmyard robot. |
| D．How do farmers usually kill weeds in the fields? |
| E．Where the robot is used. |
| F．They’re working on the new designs to improve the model. |
| 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. | A.Try our best to make friends with the countries in the Middle East and ask them to give us more gas in the future. B．We should walk to work, ride a bike to school, and take a bus home more often instead of driving cars. C．Encourage people to do more outdoor activities in their free time.Get children to learn more from reading books. D．Plants more trees and grass around our houses.Ask people not to cut down the trees.Use your handkerchief instead of using paper napkins. E．In rooms where you have an air conditioner, you can save electricity by cleaning the filter (滤波器)．A filter uses 30% more energy when it is dirty.Also, set the air conditioner at 26 degrees. F．Always keep the saying in mind “Turn off lights before leaving.” G．Take a shower instead of a bath, for a bath uses twice as much as water.Don't flush (冲洗) the toilet unnecessarily. |
The start of every New Year is when we all make plans to change our life for the better over the coming twelve months. A famous teacher says, “January 1st is a special date. A resolution (决心) made on this day is much more helpful than one made on August 26, for example.” So we all make a list of things to stop, start or change.
However, most of the people break their resolutions by January 31st. They are usually the same resolutions that were not finished last year and the year before last year. The teacher says people would like to make the same resolutions year after year, even though they have a hard time to carry them out.
A survey shows 45 percent of us make a New Year’s resolution. The most common resolutions include losing weight, volunteering to help others, giving up smoking, saving money, and getting fit. Others include eating healthier food, drinking less junk drink, and going on a trip.
According to the survey, only 71 percent of us keep our promises for the first two weeks; six months later, less than 50 percent still keep their resolutions. So many people give up their resolutions. Maybe, they don’t have strong minds.
1. When is the best time to make a resolution?| A．On August 26. | B．On December 26. |
| C．On January 1. | D．On January 31. |
| A．One of the most common resolutions is going on a trip. |
| B．People usually make different resolutions every year. |
| C．Most of us can keep our promises for the whole year. |
| D．People usually make the same resolution every year. |
| A．Because they don’t like their resolutions. |
| B．Because they don’t have strong minds. |
| C．Because they are too busy with their work. |
| D．Because the resolutions are too difficult. |
【推荐2】Height is just one of the thousands of features your genes（基因）decide. In fact, because you have two parents, your genes provide you a height that usually lands somewhere between the height of each parent. If you`re your parents are tall, then maybe you will be tall, too, but if you have questions about how tall you're going to be, ask your doctor if he or she can help you find it.
But genes don't decide everything. For example, eating an unhealthy diet can keep you from growing to your full potential（潜力）. Getting enough sleep and enough exercise will help you grow to the right height.
No doubt（怀疑）you're wondering how fast you should grow. It depends. There's no perfect or right answer. Kids grow about 2 inches（5 centimeters）a year between age 3 and the time when they start puberty（when your body starts changing and becoming more grown up）.
Your doctor will know how your growth has been going over the years. 2 centimeters here and 2 inches there are not nearly as important as the height you're at now, how you've been growing up to this point, and what other changes your body may be going through.
Don't be scared if you seem to have grown a lot in a very short time. Everyone has a growth spurt（高峰） during puberty. The age for starting puberty is about 10 for girls and about 11 for boys. But it can be earlier or later—between 7 and 13 for girls and 9 and 15 for boys.
You'll usually begin to notice that you're growing faster about a year or so after your body starts to show the first changes of puberty.
1. If you want to know how fast and how tall you should grow, ______________.| A．you should have enough exercise | B．you can ask doctors for help |
| C．you should get enough sleep | D．you can record your growth during puberty |
| A．how good it is to be a doctor | B．how much sleep we need |
| C．why genes can't decide everything | D．what healthy diet is |
| A．童年时期 | B．婴幼儿时期 | C．习惯养成期 | D．青春期 |
| A．how the genes work in your body | B．when is the time you grow fast |
| C．why you look like your parents | D．how you grow to a certain height |
| A．Your height most probably depends on how high your parents are. |
| B．Girls' age for starting puberty is usually earlier than that for boys. |
| C．How your body changes during puberty. |
| D．You may be scared sometimes when you grow too fast. |
【推荐3】A number of amazing plants grow in the nature world, including bamboo. Many people prefer to call it a tree because of its shape and size. In fact, it is a kind of grass.
Like other kinds of grass, a bamboo plant may be cut very low to the ground, but it will grow back very quickly. A Japanese scientist recorded one bamboo plant which grew almost 1.5 meters in 24 hours! Bamboo grows almost everywhere in the world except Europe. There are more than 1,000 kinds of bamboo which grow around the world on both mountains and plains(平原).
Not all bamboo looks the same. Some are very thin. They may only grow to be a few centimeters wide while others may grow to more than 30 centimeters across. This plant also comes in a variety of colors, from gold to black to green.
Bamboo has been used to make many things, such day-to-day items as hats and kitchen tools. Because it is strong, bamboo can also be used to build buildings.
Many Asian countries have been using bamboo for hundreds of years. They often use bamboo for building and supporting new buildings while they are being built. The cables(缆绳) which hold up the hanging bridge across the Min River in Sichuan, China are made of bamboo. The bridge has been in use for more than 1,000 years, and it is still holding strong.
As we know, pandas feed on the plant of bamboo. But not all the bamboos fill their appetite(胃口); only about 20 kinds of them can be their fine food.
1. There are over ________ kinds of bamboo around the world.| A．1,000 | B．20 | C．30 | D．24 |
| A．China | B．Sichuan | C．Europe | D．Japan |
| A．holiday | B．everyday | C．someday | D．weekday |
