1变化（交通transportation,环境environment,……）；
2.原因；
3.欢迎他再来平谷。
注意：1.词数100左右；
2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Jim,
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Yours,
Li Hua
2 . Where is the future going?
Our work habits have changed a lot over the past thirty years. While our parents may have expected to stay in one job, with one company, for their whole life, we are faced with the possibility of changing jobs and even careers several times. Our understanding of education, work and society is different from that of earlier generations.
People in the future will still need food, of course, but the way we produce food will not be the same.
What about people who work with computers? Well, things will change for them, too. More advanced computer programs and new technologies will remove the need for computer operators who perform simple actions. Modern search engines can do many of the things that yesterday's computer operators did. Word processing and simple information handling can be done automatically.
A rapidly changing job market also creates new challenges for students, teachers and parents.
| A．What life will be like in the future is difficult to predict. |
| B．Not only the way we work and view the job has changed. |
| C．It is hard to imagine where all these advanced technologies will lead us. |
| D．For people with these skills, there will be new jobs as database managers. |
| E．Where is the future going and what can we do to find a place for ourselves in it? |
| F．Small farms that use old methods will be replaced by large farms with high efficiency. |
| G．The difference in values, skills, education and desires between two generations is growing. |
3 . On paper, hydrogen（H2）looks like a dream fuel. Coal, oil, and natural gas produce carbon dioxide, which warms the earth when burned, Hydrogen produces pure water. Hydrogen packs more energy into less space than a battery（but certainly less than petrol）. Also, empty tanks（燃料箱）can be refilled with hydrogen much faster than refilling empty batteries with electricity.
While in practice, things are trickier. Storing a meaningful amount of hydrogen gas requires pressing it several hundred-fold. Changing it into the liquid form is another option, but it should be cooled to-253C. Both processes require a heavy and strong tank. While a 700 bar tank is acceptable for a city bus or a truck, adapting it for use in small vehicles is very difficult because the pressure during refilling would be too great.
The solution? Powerpaste.
A German team of researchers, led by Marcus Vogt, have come up with an interesting "powerpaste", which can store hydrogen energy at atmospheric pressure, ready for release when needed. It is so named because it comes in tubes and looks like toothpaste（牙膏）, not in its traditional form of gas.
The main ingredient（原料）of the paste is magnesium hydride, a substance that reacts with water to form hydrogen. The escaped hydrogen can then be directed into a fuel cell, where it reacts with oxygen from the air to produce electric power.
Refueling is very simple, as instead of going to a filling station, drivers and riders can simply replace an empty tube with a new one and refill the water tank.
Given that powerpaste only begins to break down at temperatures of around 250℃ it remains safe even when a vehicle stands in the baking sun for hours.
However, we will have to be patient. Just because researchers have succeeded in developing a new fueling way does not mean that we can expect to see such vehicles on the road anytime soon. It will indeed be several years before this concept is turned into reality.
1. As a fuel, what is the advantage of hydrogen over oil?| A．Refilling empty tanks will be more convenient. |
| B．It is less likely to worsen global warming |
| C．More energy can be packed in the same space. |
| D．It will produce pure water for people to drink. |
| A．The practical difficulties to use hydrogen as fuel in small vehicles. |
| B．The detailed processes of adapting a strong tank in small vehicles. |
| C．The differences in fueling between large vehicles and small ones. |
| D．The tricks of building strong tanks in small vehicles. |
| A．inexpensive | B．powerful | C．convenient | D．environment-friendly |
| A．Powerpaste-driven vehicles sometimes move very slowly on the road. |
| B．Practical use of powerpaste-driven vehicles will not come very soon. |
| C．Powerpaste-driven vehicles can only work after being in the sun for hours |
| D．It will be years before the researchers work out the concept of powerpaste. |
4 . Unless you are like Nasty Gal’s founder Sophia Amoruso, the passwords you use to access your email and the endless other accounts you need for work aren’t filled with intention. With increasing security requirements, it’s likely your word/number combinations are becoming even less memorable. But new research suggests it may not be long before you won’t need to memorize passwords.
“Brainprint”, published in Neurocomputing, reveals that the brain’s reaction to certain words could be a unique identifying code — like a fingerprint — that could eventually replace passwords.
In a small experiment, the researchers measured the brains’ signals of 45 volunteers as they read through a list of 75 acronyms such as FBI and DVD. The word-recognition response differed so much between each participant that a second experiment using a computer program could identify each one with 94% accuracy.
It’s not enough to feel totally secure, but promising enough to hint at the future of securing sensitive information.
The advantage of using such a biometric system (生物识别系统) is that it can be used for continuous verification (验证), New Scientist points out. Passwords or fingerprints only provide a tool for one-off identification. Continuous verification could in theory allow someone to interact with many computer systems at the same time or even with a variety of intelligent objects, without having to repeatedly enter passwords for each device.
As Hollywood has illustrated, it’s simply a matter of cutting off a finger to steal that person’s identity. “Brainprints, on the other hand, are potentially cancellable,” said Sarah Laszlo, assistant professor of psychology and linguistics at Binghamton University and co-author of the study, “So, in the unlikely event that attackers were actually able to steal a brainprint from an authorized user, the authorized user could then ‘reset’ their brainprint.”
Until now, brain signals have been a challenge to understand. This experiment leaped over the obstacle by focusing on the brainwaves from the specific area that reads and recognizes words. The signal is therefore clearer and easier to measure.
The problem, so far, is that the brain signal is still not as accurate as scanning someone’s fingerprint, and initially requires sticking diodes (二极管) on your head in order to get a read. That’s ok, according to Zhanpeng Jin, assistant professor at Binghamton University and coauthor of the study, because brainprint isn’t going to be mass-produced any time soon. He says the researchers foresee its use at places such as the Pentagon, where the number of authorized users is small, and they don’t need to be continuously verified the way you do to access your mobile device or email.
Better keep your memory sharp, at least a little while longer.
1. In paragraph 5, “one-off identification” refers to the identification that _______.| A．happens as part of a regular series | B．interacts with intelligent objects |
| C．can be verified continuously | D．needs repeated verification |
| A．fingerprints can be canceled once stolen | B．brainprints are theft-proof and resettable |
| C．attackers can steal and replace brainprints | D．users have the authority to cancel brainprints |
| A．brainprints will sharpen users’ memory | B．brainprints will become easier to be measured |
| C．brainprints will receive narrow application | D．brainprints will eventually replace fingerprints |
| A．Brainprints: A New Way to Replace Passwords |
| B．Brainprints: A Unique Device to Identify Codes |
| C．Brainprints: A Quicker Way to Access Your Email |
| D．Brainprints: A Securer Device to Identify Brain Signals |
5 . People have speculated (思索) for centuries about a future without work. Some imagine that the coming work-free world will be defined by inequality: A few wealthy people will own all the capital, and the masses will struggle in a wasteland. A different prediction holds that without jobs to give their lives meaning, future people will simply become lazy and depressed.
But it doesn’t necessarily follow from findings like these that a world without work would be filled with dissatisfaction. Such visions are based on the downsides of being unemployed in a society built on the concept of employment. In the absence of work, a society designed with other ends in mind could provide strikingly different circumstances for the future of labor and leisure.
These days, spare time is relatively rare for most workers. “When I come home from a hard day's work, I often feel tired,” says John Danaher, a lecturer at the National University of Ireland, adding, “In a world in which I don’t have to work, I might feel rather different — perhaps different enough to throw himself into a hobby with the enthusiasm usually reserved for professional matters.”
Daniel Everett, an anthropologist (人类学家) at Bentley University studied a group of hunter-gathers in the Amazon called the Piraha for years. According to Everett, while some might consider hunting and gathering work, hunter-gatherers don’t. “They think of it as fun,” he says. “They don’t have a concept of work the way we do.”
Everett described a typical clay for the Piraha: A man might get up, spend a few hours fishing, have a barbecue, and play until the evening. Does this relaxing life lead to the depression and purposelessness seen among so many of today’s unemployed? “I’ve never seen anything like depression there, except people who are physically ill,” Everett says. While many may consider work necessary for human life, work as it exists today is a relatively new invention in the course of human culture. “We think it’s bad to just sit around with nothing to do,” says Everett. “For the Piraha, it’s quite a desirable state.”
1. What might be some people’s attitude towards the work-free world?| A．Objective. | B．Negative. |
| C．Skeptical. | D．Cautious. |
| A．Risks. | B．Losses. |
| C．Challenges. | D．Disadvantages. |
| A．work plays an important role in our future life |
| B．people don’t know how to balance work and life |
| C．people’s work-free future life will be full of charm |
| D．higher unemployment makes life tougher for workers |
| A．To justify John Danaher’s opinion. | B．To show a future life without work. |
| C．To compare different views on work. | D．To introduce the Piraha in the Amazon. |
