1 . Basketball star Lebron James made ＄33 million last year. And that probably doesn’t surprise anyone. We’re used to watching professional athletes(运动员) make and spend millions of dollars.
But there was a time when professional athletes could barely buy a car. For most sports teams in 1950, there were main ways to make money. They sold tickets to games and popcorn in the stadium. For fans, it was a good deal(交易). You could see a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game for 60 cents. For players, the deal wasn’t so great. There wasn't much money to go around. So salaries(薪水) stayed low. In some professional sports, players couldn’t spend the off-season working out. They had to get second jobs so they could pay the rent.
In the 1960s, television changed everything. In 1950, only 1 in 10 American homes had TVs. By 1960, 9 in 10 homes had TVs. And people loved watching sports. At first, team owners were worried about TV. They thought fans wouldn't pay to come to the stadium anymore. But the TV networks paid millions of dollars for the right to show games. That’s when sports teams started to get rich. Finally, the teams shared their wealth with players. In 1974, several baseball teams wanted a player named Catfish Hunter, who chose to play for the New York Yankees. They paid him ＄1 million just for picking their team. Since then, athletes have only gotten richer. In 2018, the highest-paid player in baseball will make ＄33 million. In basketball, the average salary is about ＄7 million a year.
Are sports stars worth the money? Many fans seem to think so. They will pay crazy prices to cheer for their favorite players.
1. What does the underlined word “barely” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．finally | B．hardly | C．usually | D．personally |
| A．It was unfair to players. | B．It was a bit expensive. |
| C．It was cheap at the price. | D．It was less attractive to them. |
| A．Sports became a big business. |
| B．People were more willing to play sports. |
| C．More and more fans came to the stadium. |
| D．Tickets to games became more expensive. |
| A．How sports stars become famous. |
| B．Why fans are crazy about sports star. |
| C．Why sports become more and more popular. |
| D．How professional athletes started getting rich. |
2 . Feel the Music
We’ve all heard of smart phones, but how about smart clothing? The CuteCircuit company has stepped up the technology beat and invented the SoundShirt, which was designed specifically for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. How does this incredible shirt work?
First, let’s talk about a little science. People who have either all or some hearing loss don’t actually listen to music the way that hearing people do, but they can feel it. Sound is made up of vibrations, called sound waves, which hearing people can hear through their ears with the help of the brain. What’s really cool is that deaf people sense vibrations in the part of the brain that others use for hearing!
So how is this remarkable technology able to function? First, CuteCircuit had to figure out a way to send signals to the body, kind of like how you can feel when your phone vibrates in silent mode. Those connections the body can feel are called haptics, a use of technology that simulates the senses of touch and motion. The SoundShirt has tiny sensors woven into the shirt to pick up sound and transfer signals to the brain and body.
To test this music-to-shirt-to-wearer’s brain connection, CuteCircuit set microphones around the stage of a symphony orchestra. The shirt’s computer system digitally received the sounds coming from the instruments. Then the sensors, working like little motors, changed the signals into vibrations and the shirt wearer’s brain did the rest.
The SoundShirt lets people who are deaf or hard of hearing enjoy music in a unique way. The very deep musical sound, or pitch, of instruments like drums and basses vibrates in the lower part of the shirt. Higher pitched sounds from instruments like the flute or violin vibrate higher, around the neck and arms. As the music plays, the sensations combine while the brain gets to work putting together all the different vibrations, allowing the wearer to “hear” the concert.
You might think this innovation would look like something out of a science fiction movie, but in fact, these shirts are wireless! And the decorative laser-lined design on the shirt looks like an image of sound waves.
Technology’s purpose is to help people and make life better. Think of all the amazing things designers, engineers, and producers of wearable tech will be able to do for humankind.
1. What’s the passage mainly about?| A．Wearable technology like the SoundShirt is the wave of the future. |
| B．CuteCircut tested the SoundShirt with a symphony orchestra. |
| C．The SoundShirt lets people who are deaf or hard of hearing enjoy music. |
| D．Deep musical sounds from drums vibrate in the lower part of the SoundShirt. |
| A．Tiny sensors in the SoundShirt change sound signals into vibrations. |
| B．Those who have hearing loss are able to sense sound vibrations. |
| C．Deep musical sounds vibrate in the lower part of the SoundShirt. |
| D．It’s amazing that the SoundShirt is made without any wires. |
| A．Before the SoundShirt, deaf people had no way of feeling sound. |
| B．The SoundShirt doesn’t work without the power of the human brain. |
| C．The SoundShirt works when the wearer is listening to a symphony orchestra. |
| D．CuteCircuit is giving away its SoundShirts to those deaf or hard of hearing. |
| A．advise that companies should focus on applying wearable technology |
| B．advocate that technology can be used to create products that help others |
| C．prove that the design of wearable technology is a rewarding industry in future |
| D．exemplify that musical instruments can be used to change technology for the better |
3 . The national movement to get rid of plastic bags is gaining steam — with more than 240 cities and counties passing laws that ban or tax them since 2007 in the US. But these bans may be hurting the environment more than helping it.
University of Sydney economist Rebecca Taylor and colleagues compared bag use in cities with bans with those without them. For six months, they spent weekends in grocery stores recording the types of bags people carried out.
Taylor found these bag bans did what they were supposed to: People in the cities with the bans used fewer plastic bags, which led to about 40 million fewer pounds of plastic garbage per year. But people who used to reuse their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog waste, still needed bags. "What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually grew sharply after plastic grocery bags were banned," she says.
Garbage bags are thick and use more plastic than typical shopping bags. "So about 30 percent of the plastic that was reduced by the ban comes back in the form of thicker garbage bags," Taylor says. On top of that, cities that banned plastic bags saw a surge in the use of paper bags, which she estimates（估计）resulted in about 80 million pounds of extra paper garbage per year.
A bunch of studies find that paper bags are actually worse for the environment. They require cutting down and processing trees, which involves lots of water, toxic chemicals and fuel. While paper is biodegradable(可生物降解的) and avoids some of the problems of plastic, Taylor says, the huge increase of paper means banning plastic shopping bags increases greenhouse gas emissions(排放).
The Danish government recently did a study that took into account environmental impacts（影响）beyond simply greenhouse gas emissions, including water use, damage to ecosystems and air pollution. These factors make cloth bags even worse. They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment.
1. What is main idea of the passage?| A．Banning plastic bags is gaining popularity worldwide. |
| B．Banning plastic has great influence on people’s life. |
| C．Banning plastic increases the use of pager and cloth bags. |
| D．Banning plastic may harm rather than help the environment. |
| A．Plastic bags are no longer needed. |
| B．People began to reuse their plastic bags. |
| C．The amount of garbage is even greater. |
| D．Most of the reduced plastic returns in garbage bags. |
| A．They are not as biodegradable as plastic bags. |
| B．It hurts the environment more to make them. |
| C．They can’t be reused as many times as plastic bags. |
| D．They are much thicker than plastic bags. |
| A．Sharp increase. | B．Fast development. |
| C．Tight control. | D．Sharp decrease. |
