Charles Babbage: Father of the Computer
Charles Babbage hoped to invent a calculator. But the technology of his time was too simple. Babbage could not make his dream come true.
All his life, Baggage was interested in n
Baggage was also an inventor. Around 1830, he decided to d
Making the machine
The Difference Engine was very big and difficult to make. It was made of two tons of steel and gears (齿轮) . While he was building this h
Re-inventing the Engine
In 1854, two Swedish inventors built a working mechanical calculator. It was b
Babbage was the first person to come up with the idea of computers. And he is more famous today than he w
| A. private | B. in | C. playing | D. every day | E. looking for |
For those who don’t like to open their wallets, a new paying service — Apple Pay — is available（使用）now.
Paying
| A. complete | B. fifth | C. problem | D. instead of | E. complain |
Apple started the service with China Union Pay on Feb. 18th, making China the
Apple Pay users can
People may pay close attention to Apple Pay at first, but the main
3 . Today there are 6 billion people on the Earth. By the year 2050, there may be 12.5 billion. There are a lot of people to feed. We need more food.
One way to produce more food is by growing stronger plants. For thousands of years, farmers have made plants better. Every season, they pick the best plants for the next season. It works very slowly. Since 1983, scientists have been able to change plants more quickly by changing their genetic material(遗传物质). Foods from plants grown in this way are call genetically modified foods(转基因食品), or GM foods.
By changing the genetic material of a plant, it is possible to make new plants. They make plants strong against plant diseases. They can also help in our diseases: a kind of rice is being prepared, for example, which stops people from becoming blind.
Rich countries produce GM foods because they are easy to grow and bring in more money. Poor countries are interested in them because they help produce more food.
GM plants are not natural. No one knows how good or bad they are. Making GM foods is only one way of feeding people in 2050. There are strong feelings against them, because the are unnatural. They may feed people, and then hurt them or their children later. But, both rich and poor countries are very interested in their use, and they are not going away. In 2050, we may think differently about them.
1. GM foods are made by ________.| A．farmers | B．workers | C．scientists | D．plants |
| A．They make plants strong against diseases. | B．They are unnatural. |
| C．They can help in human diseases. | D．Both A and C. |
| A．are a quick way to produce food | B．grow in the wild |
| C．are safe | D．are grown only in rich countries |
| A．They are not useful. | B．They are not helpful. |
| C．They are not natural. | D．They are not cheap. |
| A．GM foods will disappear one day in the future |
| B．GM foods will not disappear in the future |
| C．people will not be interested in GM foods |
| D．people will have to stop using GM foods |
4 . Imagine a world where air pollution is no longer a problem. Clean air is all around us. People don’t have to worry about polluting the air 164 every time they drive their cars. They no longer need to face the problem of not having enough fuel either.
Although scientists have been trying for many years to develop a new kind of car that does not need gasoline (汽油), they have been unsuccessful. Recently, however, car engineers have succeeded in creating a new kind of car that runs on gasoline and electricity. This is the famous hybrid car. This car gets its name from the fact that it has a gasoline engine (引擎) and an electric motor inside. Hybrid cars do not pollute the environment as much as the cars that are commonly used today. They also cost drivers less money because they need less fuel than ordinary cars.
Hybrid cars are becoming widely popular in the United States. They are soon expected to become widely used around the world. If scientists and engineers continue to work on car development, perhaps the world with clean air that we imagined earlier just might become real in the future.
1. The underlined word “they” in Paragraph (段落) 2 means ________.| A．cars | B．drivers | C．engines | D．scientists |
| A．increase air pollution | B．run only on electricity |
| C．have no engines inside 165 | D．need less fuel than ordinary cars |
| A．like electric cars | B．drive cars easily |
| C．live in the world with clean air | D．understand how hybrid cars work |
| A．a science report | B．a travel guide |
| C．an advertisement | D．a piece of news |
| A．The Car of the Future | B．The Meaning of Hybrid |
| C．The Use of Hybrid Cars | D．The Invention of the Car |
5 . Common Sense Media did a study about kids and technology(科技). It was about many different kinds of activities, from reading and listening to the radio, to new favorites like using social media users (社会媒体用户) and video chatting(视频聊天). More than 2,600 kids took part in the study. Here are some truths:
Truth 1: Some children spend too much time looking at screens(屏幕).
One in five children uses more than six hours of computers each day, and 18% of children are looking at their screens for more than 10 hours a day. But children spend only 30 minutes reading every day.
Truth 2: Boys prefer video games; girls prefer social media.
Among boys, 71% enjoy playing video games, twice as many as girls. Girls spend about 40 minutes more each day on their screens than boys do.
Truth3: Music is their favorite.
For children, while 57% have TV sets in their rooms, music is their favorite. However, only about a third listen to music on the radio. Most children listen to it on their smartphones(智能手机).
Truth 4: Gamers get out less and less.
For gamers, their play time is the least, only 47 minutes every day. Social media users are the most active, spending one hour and 13 minutes every day doing sports.
1. How long do children spend reading every day?| A．40 minutes. | B．30 minutes. | C．47 minutes. | D．13 minutes. |
| A．理想 | B．方案 | C．计划 | D．事实 |
| A．on the computer . | B．on TV | C．on their smartphones | D．on the radio |
| A．A gamer. | B．A student. | C．A girl. | D．A boy. |
| A．Boys Prefer Video Games | B．Music is Their Favorite |
| C．Gamers Get Out Less and Less | D．Truths About Kids and Technology |
You may hear adults—especially your parents—ask you to spend less time in front of screens. But at a camp called iD Tech, computers are a necessary tool (工具) for learning about
Logan Doyle, 12, spent last week at this camp
In the room, boys were playing a 3-D racing video game. When they were done, they talked about
Their teacher, Will Whitney, said the kids were learning problem-solving. “Kids meet a problem and think of different ways to solve it,” said Whitney. Like a lot of the teachers at the camp, Whitney attended iD Tech camp while growing up. As a kid, he loved video games. He loved the camp so much that he had
Like English and math, it is important to understand
Maybe the right kind of
7 . The Internet is shaping our lives. We already have online shopping services and mobile payment. However, this is just a start. The world’s leading tech companies are planning to build smarter online communities.
The company Alibaba uses AI technology in its unmanned supermarket in Wuzhen. There is no salesperson in the supermarket, just a tablet on a desk that says “please smile”.
There is also AI that can read lips.
These technologies are being put into wider use. We may see a smarter world and better lives in the near future.
| A．She knows when to comfort you or tell jokes. |
| B．They discussed this at the World Internet Conference. |
| C．Sougou brought its lip-reading system to the conference. |
| D．Another type of AI focuses on understanding human emotions. |
| E．If you smile, it will give you a special discount for your goods. |
When you think of robots, you might think of something to finish boring tasks,
Howie Choset at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is a roboticist, a person
After he started working at Carnegie Mellon, Choset and his colleagues there began developing
| A．and | B．but | C．so |
| A．which | B．whom | C．who |
| A．moved | B．laughed | C．jumped |
| A．to | B．as | C．with |
| A．working with | B．working on | C．working out |
| A．so | B．if | C．but |
| A．his | B．their | C．her |
| A．inside | B．outside | C．below |
| A．suddenly | B．quietly | C．usually |
| A．against | B．across | C．through |
9 . Soon computers and other machines will be able to remember you by looking at your eyes! The programme works because everyone’s eyes are different. So in the future you won’t have to remember a number when you want to use a machine or take money out of a bank. You’ll just have to look at he machine and it will be able to tell who you are.
The eye-recognition (眼睛识别) programme is already being tested in shops and banks in the USA, Britain, Spain, Italy and Turkey. Soon, this technology (技术) will take the place of (取代) all other ways of finding out who people are.
However, scientists are working on other systems (系统). Machines will soon be able to know you from the shape of your face or hand or even your smell! We already have machines that can tell who you are from your voice or the mark made by your finger.
Eye-recognition is better than other kinds because your eyes don’t change as you get older, or get dirty like hands or fingers. And even twins have different eyes, so the programme can be up to 94% correct, depending on how good the technology is. Some programmes may only be right 51% of the time. In Britain, it was found that 91% of people who had tried it said that they liked the idea of eye-recognition.
In the future your computer will be looking you in the eye. So smile!
1. In the near future, we don’t need carry our bank card because ________.| A．there is no need for us to |
| B．the machine read our eyes |
| C．our eyes are quite different |
| D．our eyes has a special ability |
| A．3 | B．4 | C．5 | D．6 |
| A．Eyes will never get older. |
| B．Eyes will often get dirty. |
| C．Eyes will not get dirty easily. |
| D．Eyes will always be changing. |
| A．People are very afraid of the eye-recognition. |
| B．People are very interested in eye-recognition. |
| C．Scientists are doing something about recognition. |
| D．Scientists are finding out new ways of recognition. |
10 . The idea of growing food in a desert would make most people laugh but this is quickly becoming a reality. There are currently two desert farms in the world where quality vegetables are being planted cheaply and easily.
Sundrop Farms, based in South Australia, uses experimental greenhouses to grow tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The biggest challenge of growing food in a desert, obviously, is the lack of available water. The researchers at Sundrop Farms have gotten around this problem by using the sun to desalinate（淡化）sea water. It can also be used to control the temperature of the greenhouses.
Without depending on limited resources such as land and fresh water, Sundrop Farms has made farming a practice. This can increase the world’s food supplies. Another benefit of this kind of farming is that it can be done anywhere, thus reducing the costs of transporting food to distant locations. Yet another benefit is that it reduces the need for pesticides（杀虫剂）.
Another experimental desert farm is the Sahara Forest Project, which began in Qatar in December 2012. Greenhouses in the farm are cooled by saltwater. Solar power and other technologies are used together to help make vegetation（植被）grow in the desert environment. As deserts have expanded over recent years around the world due to global warming, this project could solve the problem.
The result form the Qatar project were better than expected and in June of 2014, Jordan agreed to host another one. This will be much bigger than the Qatar project and the project members will have even more opportunities to test their experiments on a much larger scale. It is not clear yet that desert farming represents the future of farming but these projects have shown some success in the field.
1. What does “this problem” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Sea water is hard to purify. |
| B．The desert is short of water. |
| C．The temperature is high in the desert. |
| D．Desert farms aren’t fit to plant vegetables. |
| A．It needs more pesticides. | B．It saves delivery costs. |
| C．It has a location limit. | D．It solves food waste problems. |
| A．It lives up to expectations. |
| B．It can help produce more food. |
| C．It is started to prevent global warming. |
| D．It uses technology to produce saltwater. |
| A．It still has problems to solve. |
| B．It represents the future of farming. |
| C．Its early success has aroused interest in it. |
| D．Its aim is to create more job opportunities. |
