1 . Smart carts (购物车) are shopping carts equipped with tablet computers and similar de-vices that help shoppers manage shopping lists, pay for items, and find products in the store. Manufacturers of smart cart technology produce accessory fittings (配件), and stores can use them to remake existing carts. It’s also possible to purchase new shopping carts with the smart technology installed.
The level of function available with a smart cart can vary. Some can be combined with cellphones or software programs to allow shoppers to create shopping lists and upload them to a cart. Internet-enabled smart carts may provide suggestions or tips for shoppers. Some can communicate with the systems to guide themselves around the store. Shoppers can ask the cart where to find items, or have it organize a grocery list to make shopping easier. As a shop-per moves along the snack selling areas, for instance, the smart cart could flash a reminder that the customer often likes to buy a particular brand of potato chips.
In-store communication to allow customers to order items from different counters may al-so be available. On the contrary, a department can page a customer with the use of smart carts, The counters can send a message when the order is ready, which reduces time spent in line.
Smart cart technology can also enable the price checks and allows customers to pay for items through the cart, without having to go through a checkout line. As they add items to the cart, it updates the total, and the shopper can close out the visit at the end by telling the cart to automatically pay from a stored bank account or credit card. This application for smart carts can be important in busy stores where customers get impatient waiting in line to pay.
1. Why does the author think the introduced cart is a smart cart?| A．It is made to encourage shopping. |
| B．It is equipped with technology to manage shopping lists. |
| C．It is equipped with translation function. |
| D．It is designed to take the place of clerks. |
| A．It is smarter than humans. |
| B．It is helpful but rather expensive. |
| C．It only has a few simple skills. |
| D．It can help save much time. |
| A．Technology. | B．Fashion. |
| C．Food. | D．Advertisement. |
| A．The design of smart carts |
| B．The influences of smart carts |
| C．The introduction to smart carts |
| D．The market demands for smart carts |
2 . Scientists have been studying Antarctica for over a century, but details as basic as what it looks like beneath all that ice have largely remained a mystery. Now, Earther reports that a team of scientists from Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and the UK has published the most detailed data yet on the continent's subglacial topography （冰川下的地形）near the South Pole.
As they report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, central Antarctica is home to three large canyons （峡谷）, one of which is deeper than the Grand Canyon and nearly as wide at some points. The researchers made the discovery by flying a plane with radar over the South Pole, a spot that isn't covered by satellites. They expected to find mountains beneath the ice sheet, but the wide canyons they found between the mountains came as a surprise.
Of the three canyons, two hadn't been documented previously. The largest, the Foundation Trough （基础槽），measures 218 miles long, up to 22 miles wide, and 6,260 feet deep, putting it up there with the planet's most impressive canyons.
The discoveries are significant on their own, but the real purpose behind the research is to better understand how the West and East Antarctic ice sheets will react to rising temperatures. Human-caused climate change has made some of the continent's ice not firm, and the West Antarctic ice sheet especially has been slowly melting to the sea. If patterns continue, the coastal glaciers supporting the large ice sheets could fall down, causing sea levels to rise a minimum of 10 feet. If this happens, the canyons could be a major factor in the speed and direction of ice flow from central Antarctica to the coast.
The event isn't likely to happen in the near future, but further study o£ Antarctica's topography will allow scientists to better predict when it might.
1. Which of the following have scientists known little?| A．The shape of Antarctica ice. |
| B．The condition of Antarctica ice. |
| C．The Grand Canyon. |
| D．The beneath of Antarctica ice. |
| A．The Grand Canyon. |
| B．The mountains. |
| C．Three large canyons. |
| D．Ice sheets. |
| A．Unexpected. | B．Interesting. |
| C．Ridiculous. | D．Common. |
| A．To document the three canyons. |
| B．To find out how large the three canyons are. |
| C．To know how ice sheets react to rising temperatures. |
| D．To show the importance of the three canyons. |
3 . Even though they're not the most exciting things in the world, plants have fascinated us ever since the days of early humans. They may not do any tricks or greet us when we come home at night like a dog would, but that doesn't mean they're any less interesting than animals.
However, just when we thought we knew everything we could about them, a recent study found that plants may possess a secret ability that's gone unnoticed all this time. According to the study by Australian biologist Monica Gagliano, published in the journal Oecologia, plants may be able to hear sounds.
To come to this conclusion, Gagliano and her team planted pea seedlings in a pair of different Y-shaped pots with two arms. The first pot's arms led to fresh water, while the other's led to either dry soil or a sealed plastic tube containing flowing water.
Naturally, the first pot's seedlings grew toward the water. What's surprising, however, is that the second pot's seedlings grew toward the sealed water supply and not the soil.
They just knew the water was there, even if the only thing to detect was the sound of it flowing inside the pipe, Gagliano told Scientific American. Gagliano believes that plants are able to use their leaves to detect sound waves, which make tiny vibrations (振动) as they're produced.
This could explain why so many people believe that singing or playing music to their plants helps them grow.
I had a plant that I used to wash the leaves once a week and sing to it, plant lover Heather Goodall told BBC News. It grew from being about 2 feet tall to 7 feet tall in just a couple of years.
So, does this mean we should start treating our plants like pets? Not necessarily, although perhaps it does mean we should give them more respect. I would like to see plants acknowledged more as the amazing, interesting, exotic living beings they are, and less as a mere source of human nutrition, Fatima Cvrckova, a scientist at Charles University in the Czech Republic, told BBC News.
1. What did Gagliano's study find?| A．Plants could identify the sound of water. |
| B．Different plants have different ways of detecting sounds. |
| C．Plants could tell the difference between various sounds. |
| D．Sound can change the direction plants grow toward. |
| A．flowers | B．roots | C．leaves | D．fruits |
| A．To show a different way of growing plants. |
| B．To prove that music plays a role in plant growth. |
| C．To stress the importance of treating plants like pets. |
| D．To point out that plants might be more interesting than we thought. |
| A．Plants are just a source of human nutrition. |
| B．There is still a lot we don't know about plants. |
| C．Most people don't care enough about their plants. |
| D．Plants are incredible and deserve more respect. |
4 . According to a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and consumption habits of our eating companions can influence our food intake. And contrary to existing research that says you should avoid eating with heavier people who order large portions(份), it's the beanpoles with big appetites you really need to avoid.
To test the effect of social influence on eating habits, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, 95 undergraduate women were individually invited into a lab to ostensibly(表面上)participate in a study about movie viewership. Before the film began, each woman was asked to help herself to a snack. An actor hired by the researchers grabbed her food first. In her natural state, the actor weighed 105 pounds. But in half the cases she wore a specially designed fat suit which increased her weight to 180 pounds.
Both the fat and thin versions of the actor took a large amount of food. The participants followed suit, taking more food than they normally would have. However, they took significantly more when the actor was thin.
For the second test, in one case the thin actor took two pieces of candy from the snack bowls. In the other case, she took 30 pieces. The results were similar to the first test: the participants followed suit but took significantly more candy when the thin actor took 30 pieces.
The tests show that the social environment is extremely influential when we're making decisions. If this fellow participant is going to eat more, so will I. Call it the “I’ll have what she's having” effect. However, we'll adjust the influence. If an overweight person is having a large portion, I'll hold back a bit because I see the results of his eating habits. But if a thin person eats a lot, I'll follow suit. If he can eat much and keep slim, why can't I?
1. What is the recent study mainly about?| A．Food safety. | B．Movie viewership. |
| C．Consumer demand. | D．Eating behavior. |
| A．Big eaters. | B．Overweight persons. |
| C．Picky eaters. | D．Tall thin persons. |
| A．To see how she would affect the participants. |
| B．To test if the participants could recognize her. |
| C．To find out what she would do in the two tests. |
| D．To study why she could keep her weight down. |
| A．How hungry we are. | B．How slim we want to be. |
| C．How we perceive others. | D．How we feel about the food. |
5 . My father died when I was nine, and I remember doing the household chores to help my mother. I hated changing the vacuum cleaner (真空吸尘器) bag and picking up things the machine did not suck up.
Twenty years later, in 1978, I was doing chores at home alongside my wife. One day the vacuum cleaner was screaming away, and I had to empty the bag because I could not find a replacement for it. With this lifelong hatred of the way the machine worked, I decided to make a bagless vacuum cleaner.
Easier said than done, of course. I didn’t realize that I would spend the next five years perfecting my design, a process that resulted in 5,127 different prototypes (设计原型). By the time I made my 15th prototype, my third child was born. By 2,627, my wife and I were really counting our pennies. By 3,727, my wife was giving art lessons for some extra cash, and we were getting further and further into debt. These were tough times, but each failure brought me closer to solving the problem.
I just had a passion for the vacuum cleaner as a product, but I never thought of going into a business with it. In the early 1980s, I started trying to get licensing agreements (许可协议) for my technology. The reality was very different, however. The major vacuum makers had built a business model based on the profits from bags and filters (滤网). No one would license my idea, not because it was a bad one, but because it was bad for business.
That gave me the courage to keep going, but soon after, the companies that I had talked with started making machines like mine. I had to fight legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic to protect the patents on my vacuum cleaner. However, I was still in financial difficulties until 1993, when my bank manager personally persuaded Lloyds Bank to lend me $1 million. Then I was able to go into production. Within two years, the Dyson vacuum cleaner became a best-seller in Britain.
Today, I still embrace risk and the potential for failure as part of the process. Nothing beats the excitement of invention. Go out and brainstorm your ideas. You are not bound to any rules — in fact, the stranger and riskier your idea, the better.
1. According to the article, which of the following statements about James Dyson is NOT true?| A．He lost his father during his childhood and lived with his mother. |
| B．He decided to develop an innovative vacuum cleaner for his wife while in his thirties. |
| C．He built over five thousand prototypes of the vacuum cleaner between 1978 and 1983. |
| D．The vacuum cleaner he reinvented became popular with British customers as soon as it arrived on the market. |
| A．in the carly 1980s |
| B．before he obtained a patent on the product |
| C．after his bank manager agreed to lend him $1 million |
| D．after he managed to get a S1 million loan |
| A．Dyson was a born businessman |
| B．Dyson's invention might have ended up in failure without his wife |
| C．Dyson had no confidence in his vacuum cleaner initially |
| D．Dyson's vacuum cleaner was never recognized by other vacuum makers |
| A．We are all failures — at least the best of us are. |
| B．The foundation stones for a success are honesty, faith, love and loyalty. |
| C．It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves. |
| D．The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. |
6 . This famous site features one of the largest and most representative collections of Buddhist architecture and art in China. It was rated as a 5A-class tourist attraction in 2010.
The Lingshan Grand Buddha is an 88-meter-high open-air bronze statue of Sakyamuni. It is 17 meters higher than the Grand Buddha at Leshan Mountain. It is part of the pattern of Five Buddhas in five directions together with the Big Buddha at Lantau Island in Hong Kong to the south, the Grand Buddha at Leshan Mountain to the west, the Grand Buddha in Yungang Caves to the north and the Grand Buddha at the Longmen Caves in the central area. At the feet of the Grand Buddha, you can feel the loftiness （雄伟）and dignity of Buddhism.
Tips：
Location: Lingshan Road, Mashan town, Binhu district, Wuxi
Tickets: Through ticket： 210 yuan （ $ 31. 85） , and free tickets for the performance of Ode to Auspiciousness for individual visitors
Opening hours for Lingshan Mountain: 7：00 17：00
Opening hours for Brahma Palace: 9：00 18：00
Recommendations:
The Nine-Dragon Fountain
The Nine-Dragon Fountain in front of the giant Buddha will start to play music and the song, The Birth of Buddha , at 10 am every day. A huge lotus（莲花）slowly blooms with six petals, and a 7-meter golden statue of Prince Buddha rises from the lotus, with one hand pointing to the sky and one hand at the earth, symbolizing Buddha's light shining on all things.
The Brahma Palace
The whole palace shows the mixture of traditional cultural elements with Western architectural features. Many cultural heritage items and art works can be found there. Its splendid design surprises every visitor.
1. What is the Lingshan Grand Buddha famous for?| A．Its typical collections of architecture and art. |
| B．Its special material. |
| C．Its geographical location. |
| D．Its long history. |
| A．It lasts 10 hours for visitors. | B．It costs 210 yuan at least. |
| C．It's available only for group visitors. | D．It's free if you get a through ticket. |
| A．It’s in front of the giant Buddha. |
| B．Its design and collections are amazing. |
| C．Visitors can enjoy a huge lotus there. |
| D．Many traditional cultural items are on sale. |
7 . Lincoln High Calculus (微积分) teacher Anthony Yom has given his students the desire to learn and the will to succeed. While his classes are challenging, the educator does all he can to keep his students invested, combining real-life situations and his lessons to show them the value of their work. He challenges us to the maximum, so we do better on tests, sophomore student Alexis Pong told the Los Angeles Times. One of Yom’s other students, 17-year-old Cedrick Argueta, completed a perfect test paper on the Advanced Placement Calculus exam. Only 12 students in the world accomplished this. As for, all of Yom’s other AP Calculus students, each of them passed the challenging exam.
Yom said most of the praise should go to the kids, though he does go above and beyond his students. However, when he first started teaching at Lincoln High, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Yom felt nervous about the number of students who were unmotivated and unprepared. Some even attempted to physically threaten the teacher. But he didn’t give in. And he gave up his free time to tutor on weekends and during vacations.
At Lincoln High, 80% of the students are Latino (拉丁裔) and Yom hopes to encourage more of them to take his college prep classes, which are currently dominated (支配) by Asians. “I don’t think the Asian students are any smarter than the Latino students,” the teacher states, mentioning that low Latino participation can be connected to cultural differences and expectations. Fortunately, Cedrick Argueta’s AP Calculus success story serves as the perfect example. “My mother cleans houses,” Argueta reveals. “My father is a factory worker.” But the student would be likely to work for NASA or become a teacher.
What is the key to Yom’s success as a teacher? “This may sound dull, but you really have to love them.” the devoted instructor concludes.
1. What does the underlined word “this” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Getting a full mark on the APC exam. |
| B．Preparing for a key university. |
| C．Passing the APC exam. |
| D．Learning very well. |
| A．Kind and smart. | B．Proud and rude. |
| C．Mean and stubborn. | D．Modest and devoted. |
| A．To praise Cedrick Argueta’s great efforts. |
| B．To encourage parents to send their children to school. |
| C．To show Latino students can be clever and successful. |
| D．To show Cedrick Argueta’s idea is better than teachers. |
| A．A math book. | B．A newspaper. |
| C．A guidebook. | D．A sports magazine. |
