1 . Independent living at home is the ideal for every aging person. But a fall or other health-threatening incidents can change everything rapidly.
The wearable “panic buttons” introduced in the late 1980s were a great advance. But they only work if people actually wear them and can reach the button in an emergency. Today there are passive wearables that automatically detect falls, and camera-based systems to monitor elder safety.
Coming from a 40-year career in the semiconductor and wireless communication field, Rafi Zack decided to find a better alternative. “People aren’t devoted to wearing small devices 24/7, and camera-based systems are an invasion（侵犯）of privacy,” he points out, “The most challenging aspect is a fall. How fast we can detect a fall matters because the medical situation worsens quickly. Sometimes people stay on the floor for a long time. We have to find out how to solve that problem.”
Zack is a co-founder, CEO and vice president of R&D at EchoCare Technologies which has developed ECHO (Elderly Care Home Observer), a cloud-connected monitor based on radar technology and machine learning.
Because radar sees through walls, one ECHO unit fixed on the ceiling or wall can monitor one person (or two persons, in a future version) in a standard-sized apartment in a senior living facility. The device detects falls, breathing difficulties, drowning in a bathtub and other dangerous events. It gives out warnings to potential health worsening conditions by continuously monitoring and analyzing the person’s location, posture（姿势）, motion and breath. EchoCare tested the device in the United States, Japan, Australia and Israel. ECHO was certified（认证）in 2019 in Japan with the most aging population in the world.
“Bathrooms were the main testing area where about 17,000 deadly accidents happen annually.” said SMK Director and Executive Vice President Tetsuo Hara. “Bathroom makers, home security service providers and nursing homes are highly interested in EchoCare’s solution.” Zack noted, “As more and more elder people live alone as a result of social distancing, there is an increased need to monitor them without the burden of wearables or privacy-invading cameras.”
1. What’s the advantage of ECHO over “panic buttons”?| A．It has camera-based systems. | B．It has been widely accepted. |
| C．It can function without cameras. | D．Its buttons can be easily reached. |
| A．It is designed to send out warnings regularly. |
| B．It monitors dangerous health-related events. |
| C．It was certified in many developed countries. |
| D．It detects more than one person at the same time. |
| A．It’ll become more popular with the elderly. |
| B．It’ll stop 17,000 deaths happening annually. |
| C．It’ll be used in nursing homes and hospitals. |
| D．It’ll help elderly people to live an active life. |
| A．An Advanced Medical Instrument |
| B．A High-tech Monitor for the Elderly |
| C．The Invention of a Healthcare Device |
| D．The Improvement of a Medical Facility |
2 . My life as a tax-paying employed person began in middle school, when, for three whole days, I worked on an assembly (装配) line. My best friend Betsy’s father was an executive (管理者) at Hough Bakeries, which, at special festivals, made little rabbit-shaped cakes for all its stores. The plant downtown needed eight kids for temporary help, and the shift (轮班) fell over spring break, during which I had no plans. Cake? I loved cake-icing especially. I’d earn minimum wage. I’d see how a factory worked. My parents thought all of this was a grand idea for a girl like me and called Betsy’s dad with their permission.
Our roles on the line were simple: Place cakes on conveyor belt. Attach icing ears. Apply icing eyes and nose. Remove the cakes from belt; place onto trays. This was harder than it sounds. With your mind wandering, the cakes pile up. As I told my parents that first night, it was all a little more high-pressure than I’d expected. Dad smiled. This was the sort of work that made you appreciate the money you earned, he told me. And if your feet hurt or the minutes felt like hours, well then that was just motivation to keep those grades up and get that college education.
And the icing? We kids were allowed to eat as much as we wanted. By noon the first day, I could barely look at the stuff. To borrow a favorite phrase from my father: The executives weren’t born yesterday.
1. Why did the writer decide to take the job?| A．To earn lots of money. |
| B．To enjoy her spring break. |
| C．To help Betsy’s father temporarily. |
| D．To learn of the operation of the plant. |
| A．The writer found the job simple. |
| B．The job needed great concentration. |
| C．The writer quit the job the first night. |
| D．Father laughed at the writer’s performance. |
| A．Inspiring. | B．Doubtful. | C．Critical. | D．Sympathetic. |
| A．She found the icing ugly. | B．She was tired from the work. |
| C．She had eaten too much icing. | D．She felt depressed with the job. |
3 . Skyscraper didn’t always mean a tall building. The earliest reference to the word dates back to 1788, when it was used to describe a really tall horse, according to The Oxford English Dictionary. By the 1790s, a Philadelphia doctor had used the term to describe the triangular sail at the very top of a ship.
After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Home Insurance Company hired architect William Jenney to design a tall, fire-proof head office. Jenney was inspired to design the building’s steel framework (框架)after his wife placed a heavy book on a small birdcage and found that the cage supported the weight. Today, that revolutionary structure is widely considered to be the first skyscraper.
Since then, the competition to build the world’s tallest building has been as sharp as the top of the Empire State Building. In the late 1920s, Walter Chrysler and his architect arranged for the secret construction of a roof that added 125 feet of height to the new Chrysler Building, making it 1,046 feet tall. The plan allowed them to eclipse(使逊色)the 927-foot Bank of Manhattan Trust Building.
However, only 11 months after the Chrysler Building was ranked the world’s tallest, it was surpassed by a new neighbor — the Empire State Building. Yet when it opened in 1931, less than 25 percent of the building was occupied. New York jokers called it the “Empty State Building”.
The largest skyscraper in the world always seems to be under construction. Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia is the latest and it’s expected to stretch nearly one kilometer (3, 280 feet) into the sky.
1. What did the word “skyscraper” originally mean？| A．A triangular sail. | B．A high building. |
| C．A fire-proof head office. | D．An extremely tall horse. |
| A．given away | B．left behind | C．put off | D．taken up |
| A．It was ranked the world’s tallest. |
| B．Tourists were not allowed to visit it. |
| C．Its construction lasted eleven months. |
| D．Only a few people lived or worked in it. |
| A．In order of time. | B．In order of space. |
| C．By analyzing causes. | D．By giving definitions. |
4 .
RINGING IN YOUR EARS? Tinnitus specialists are trying to recommend a new medically based program which can offer genuine relief for tinnitus — Sound Therapy! If you have:  Ringing in the earsWork related noise exposureDizzinessDifficulty hearing clearlyBlocked ear/sSleeping problemsSound Therapy may be the answer! CALL 1300 55 77 96 To learn exactly how our program works and get a FREE DVD info pack, visit our website www.mysoundtherapy.com/rd or call 1300 55 77 96 and discuss your needs with one of our consultants.  | Effective Tinnitus Relief— at last! Every year millions of people visit their doctors complaining of tinnitus (ringing in the ears), and most are told that they just have to learn to live with it. Affecting approximately 20% of the population, tinnitus is a stressful condition that can cause sleeplessness, anxiety and social isolation（孤独）. It is often accompanied by dizziness, a certain degree of sound sensitivity, blocked-ear or hearing loss. Now there is a new home-based treatment which comes from the research on the ear and brain. It uses high frequency stimulation, through music, to re-build and organize brain connections. The result, for most listeners, is relief or reduction of tinnitus and related conditions. Benefits can also include better sleep, clearer hearing, better memory, relief of dizziness and vertigo（眩晕）and a general feeling that the brain is sharper and communication is easier.  |
1. What does tinnitus refer to?
| A．Hearing disorder. | B．Suffering anxiety. |
| C．Drumming in ears. | D．Sleeping problems. |
| A．By listening to soft music. | B．By relieving short-term depression. |
| C．By reducing brain’s activities. | D．By offering high-frequent stimulation. |
| A．To recommend a treatment for tinnitus. |
| B．To introduce the benefits of Sound Therapy. |
| C．To tell people ways of learning about tinnitus. |
| D．To explain the common problems tinnitus causes. |
5 . Alan Tong was the worst driver in town. He had an accident of some kind almost every week.
Alan lived with his mother. His mother was always worried about him. Every day she worried that police would appear to arrest him. This wasn’t a foolish worry because they usually visited Alan’s house about once a week to send a speeding ticket or to serve him notice to appear in court (法庭).
Most of his accidents were caused by his carelessness. He drove through red lights. He turned left or drove at night without proper lights. He overtook other cars on hills. In short, there wasn’t a traffic rule that Alan had not broken, and he had had so many accidents that it was a surprise that he was still alive. But luckily for Alan, he had never hurt anyone in his accidents or even gone to the hospital.
Although Alan wasn’t popular with the police, he was very popular with his lawyer. Alan’s lawyer, Mr. Tsui, had earned a lot of money from Alan’s cases and always felt very excited when he saw Alan coming into his office.
One day Alan was working in the garage, painting his car when his mother walked in. “What are you doing?” his mother asked.
“Painting my car,” Alan replied.
“I can see that,” his mother said, “but why are you painting one side of the car red and the other side blue?” “Because every time I have to go to court for a traffic crime, there are always two witnesses (目击证人) . “What color was the car?” the judge always asks, and the two witnesses always give the same answer. Well, in the future, one witness will say it was blue. Mr. Tsui will then say to the judge, “Your honor, the witnesses cannot even agree on the color of the car involved in the accident.” And the judge will have to dismiss the case against me.
1. Which of the following is true of Mr. Tsui?| A．He always volunteered to help Alan. | B．He was popular with the police. |
| C．He was good friends with Alan. | D．He looked forward to Alan’s visit. |
| A．Painting his car all red. | B．Painting his car two colors. |
| C．Painting the garage. | D．Cleaning his car. |
| A．To confuse the evidence against him. | B．To help the judge in court. |
| C．To make the witnesses agree. | D．To leave a good impression in court. |
| A．Remove. | B．Continue. |
| C．Reconsider | D．Accept. |
6 . Welcome here! The Southern Spring Home&Garden Show will be held at the conference center of The Park Expo. This show will last from Wednesday (March 2) to Sunday (March 6, 2022).
Admission: Adults $10.00. Teenagers under 15 free with a paying adult.
Join Lincolnton’s own Tammie Davis as she performs her original country songs at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 5th.
Special Days: The Spring for Kids First Night Gala benefiting the Council for Children’s Rights will take place from 7 p.m. to 10 p. m. on Wednesday, March 2, 2022, Tickets are $50 and include an access to Freedom Hall, where you can enjoy delicious food, beverage (饮料) and entertainment free of charge.
Seniors Day (55+): Wednesday is for them. Cost is $ 7.00 but without coupons (优惠券)．
Hours: Wednesday, Thursday&Sunday:10 a.m.—5 p.m.; Friday & Saturday:10 a.m.—9 p.m.
Wheelchairs are available on a first-come-first-served basis for you. The cost is $1.00 and you are required to leave a valid driver’s license or ID.
Parking: All Day Parking $ 6.00; Half Day Parking $ 3.00; Every Hour Parking $ 1.00 For More Information: Come to visit Mardee Woodward in person.
E-mail:mwoodward@southernshows.com Telephone: 704-376-4085
1. We can learn from the text that the show will .| A．take place in a private house | B．offer free parking |
| C．have the only one singer | D．last only five days |
| A．$30. | B．$10. | C．$20. | D．$40. |
| A．old people can visit the show only on Wednesday |
| B．there are not enough wheelchairs for the disabled |
| C．the disabled can use the wheelchairs free of charge |
| D．kids’ tickets on Wednesday don’t include beverage |
7 . Tracking wildlife is a tough job. Take the case of a one-eared leopard named Pavarotti.
Kasim Rafiq, a wildlife biologist at Liverpool John Moores University. “So I used to get up at the crack of dawn, follow his tracks and try and find him. So one day, I went out, and I was looking for him. And his tracks took me off road through this woodland area...and...”
Before he knew it, the wheel of his Land Rover was stuck in a deep hole. He wasted several hours getting it out. And then, on the way back to camp, he came across some local tour guides and their safari (观赏野兽的旅行) guests, who’d had way better luck spotting Pavarotti. “Basically, they laughed and they talked to me that they’d seen him that morning.”
Rafiq then realized that tourist wildlife sightings might be an untapped source of information about wild animals.
So he and his team worked with a safari lodge in Botswana to analyze 25,000 tourist photographs of wildlife. They compared those data to the estimates they made with traditional wildlife biology methods.
It turned out that the estimates from tourists’ photos were just as good as those gleaned (四处搜集) from traditional methods. And the tourists were actually the only ones to see elusive (难以捉摸的) leopards — the researchers would have missed the cats without the citizen science data. The results are in the journal Current Biology.
The idea is not to put wildlife researchers out of a job. “The reality is there are so many interesting things we still have to find out about these large carnivores (食肉动物) and so many conservation (保护) projects that need to be carried out that we don’t have the time or resources to do them all.” And tourist photos might help make sure that all the local carnivores are spotted.
Thanks for listening for Scientific American-60-Second Science. I’m Christopher Intagliata.
1. What happened to Rafiq when he tracked Pavarotti?| A．He was lost in the woods. |
| B．He was trapped in a deep hole. |
| C．He found Pavarotti with tourists’ help. |
| D．He met Pavarotti on the way back to camp. |
| A．The photos are sources of information about wildlife. |
| B．The photos are mirrors of the wildlife researchers’ life. |
| C．The photos taken by tourists are of high quality. |
| D．The photos taken by tourists are especially beautiful. |
| A．The researchers have missed the data of cats. |
| B．The information from tourists’ photos was equally good. |
| C．The value of tourist photos hasn’t been proven. |
| D．Only the traditional methods can track wildlife. |
| A．On TV. | B．In a magazine. | C．On a radio. | D．In a book. |
8 . Imagine a world where you move around in front of a personal computer in your own sound space. You listen to your favorite songs, play loud computer games or watch a movie — all without other people hearing the sound and without headphones.
That is the possibility presented by “sound beaming”, a new technology from Noveto Systems, an Israeli company. On Friday, the company introduced a desktop device that sends sound directly to a listener without the need for headphones or a special receiver.
Noveto Systems gave The Associated Press (AP) a chance to test its SoundBeamer 1.0 before its introduction. The AP’s Louise Dixon writes that listening to the device is like something from a science fiction movie.The sound seems so close that it feels like it is inside your ears while also in front, above and behind them.
Noveto expects the device will have many uses. Office workers could listen to music or conference calls without others hearing. People could play a game, a movie or music without waking up others in the same room. Because the device does not use headphones, it is possible to hear other sounds in the room clearly.
The device uses a 3-D sensing module that finds and follows the ear position of the listener. It sends ultrasonic waves (超声波) to create sound pockets by the user’s ears. The 3-D method creates sound on all sides of the listener, therefore the listeners feel completely transported into the scene.
By changing a setting, the sound can follow a listener around when he moves his head. It is also possible to move out of the sound beam's path and hear nothing at all.
While the idea of sound beaming is not new, Noveto was the first to launch the technology.
According to the chief executive officer Christophe Ramstein, a “smaller” version of the device will be ready for release to consumers next year.
1. What does the underlined word “possibility” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．The listener may put on music to block out other sounds. |
| B．The listener may hear sound only for him or her without using headphones. |
| C．The listener may enjoy songs or movies without being interrupted by others. |
| D．The listener may have the ability to pick up some special sounds. |
| A．Amazing. | B．Impossible. |
| C．Strange. | D．Meaningful. |
| A．It places the listener on the scene to hear the sound. |
| B．It fixes a sound beam’s path which can not be changed. |
| C．It follows the listeners around to send and receive sounds. |
| D．With 3-D tracking technology, it sends ultrasonic waves to the target listener. |
| A．To promote the SoundBeamer. | B．To introduce a new sound device. |
| C．To recommend new headphones. | D．To explain a technical phenomenon. |
9 . If you want to find a book for your sons or daughters, here are some books that you can choose from.
Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation
by Stuart Gibbs
The CIA is on a task to find an equation (方程式), which could destroy the world if the bad people get it. For help, they turn to Charlie, a 12-year-old girl who is as smart as Albert Einstein. Children who like exciting mysteries will enjoy reading this book.
AstroNuts
by Jon Scieszka and Steven Weinberg
In AstroNuts, the Earth has been destroyed by humans for thousands of years. Four animals set out from Mount Rushmoret the main office of NASA. Their task is to find a new planet fit for human life. Finally, they discover one: Plant Planet. The story s topic is simple: Don’t harm the planet. Readers who love science fiction (科幻小说) enjoy AstroNuts.
Stargazing
by Jen Wang
Christine hears that Moon, who is new in town, is the kind of kid who beats people up for fun. But Moon and her mum come to live with Christine’s family, and the two kids become best friends. Moon even shares a big secret with Christine. Stargazing is based on Jen Wang’s experiences as a child. The story is about the power of friendship.
Roll with It
by Jamie Sumner
Roll with It is a story about a 12-year-old girl named Ellie. She has difficulty walking on her own and uses a wheelchair. When Ellie and her mum move to another state to take care of Ellie’s grandpa, she must learn to deal with a new school and new friendships. This book is a must-read for everyone. It's a heartwarming story that really shows the value of family.
1. Whose book tells exciting mysteries?| A．Stuart Gibbs. | B．Jon Scieszka. | C．Jen Wang. | D．Jamie Sumner. |
| A．Stargazing. | B．AstroNuts. |
| C．Roll with It. | D．Charlie Thome and the Last Equation. |
| A．It mainly discusses animals’ stories. |
| B．It includes much scientific knowledge. |
| C．It is mainly about how to make friends. |
| D．It is connected with the author’s own experiences. |
| A．She has to solve problems faced in a new place. |
| B．She has trouble communicating with others. |
| C．She is carefully looked after by her grandpa. |
| D．She doesn’t want to go to another slate. |
| A．Salesgirls. | B．Teachers. | C．Parents. | D．Waiters. |
10 . The state of Israel has welcomed the opportunity to build itself as a startup nation. But how did Israel show its strength in the tech market? And what drove this region to become a software-centric startup nation of young companies competing for a place on the global tech map?
Part of the answer comes down to the local mindset, mentality and morals-after all, the country is well used to fighting for its place. The wider answer is the combination of resources(largely human, not natural ones), higher education, the widespread use of English and the determined attitude to overcome problems that is typical of the local culture.
“We have a longstanding tradition of turning curses into blessings,” said Jon Medved, CEO of OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-based global venture investment platform organization. “We don’t have huge natural resources, so we have worked hard to develop our skills-base in the country. There is a certain mentality that leans towards risk acceptance here…. and people develop that from a young age. In my view, great achievements are made by taking lots of risks, but in a calculated way with various approaches to everything.”
Actually, what happens next will be interesting. Israel can’t call itself a startup technology nation forever. For example, more and more of these tech startups will need to graduate to become fully-blown operational companies. Although what often happens is the smaller tech companies end up getting bought by international tech heavyweights-the ICQ messaging system purchase by AOL being among the most famous of these. We can also see major firms like Microsoft and others setting up production plants and research centres in the region, so Israel won’t want to see its talent being bled outwards either.
Either way, Israel’s technology zone has put itself on the map from what appeared to almost nothing. Software development works well in a melting pot. It just needs some hot sauce… and they have that too.
1. What is one of the reasons behind Israel’s rising as a technology startup nation?| A．Rich human and natural resources. | B．A high value placed on education. |
| C．Widespread use of the native language. | D．Successful cooperation with major firms. |
| A．Some natural resource. | B．The local culture. |
| C．The risk-taking mentality. | D．A higher education. |
| A．To prove talent is the key to success. |
| B．To show the startups giving up their dreams. |
| C．To confirm nothing is impossible in this field. |
| D．To stress the challenge the startups tend to face. |
| A．Israel’s tech market has the strength to further develop. |
| B．Israel still needs to make greater effort to stay on the top. |
| C．Israel’s technology has played the leading role in its field. |
| D．No International tech heavyweights can compete with Israel. |
