1 . When almost everyone has a mobile phone, why are more than half of Australian homes still paying for a landline (座机)?
These days you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Australia over the age of 15 who doesn’t own a mobile phone. In fact plenty of younger kids have one in their pocket. Practically everyone can make and receive calls anywhere, anytime.
Still, 55 percent of Australians have a landline phone at home and only just over a quarter (29%) rely only on their smartphones according to a survey (调查). Of those Australians who still have a landline, a third concede that it’s not really necessary and they’re keeping it as a security blanket — 19 percent say they never use it while a further 13 percent keep it in case of emergencies. I think my home falls into that category.
More than half of Australian homes are still choosing to stick with their home phone. Age is naturally a factor (因素)— only 58 percent of Generation Ys still use landlines now and then, compared to 84 percent of Baby Boomers who’ve perhaps had the same home number for 50 years. Age isn’t the only factor; I’d say it’s also to do with the makeup of your household.
Generation Xers with young families, like my wife and I, can still find it convenient to have a home phone rather than providing a mobile phone for every family member. That said, to be honest the only people who ever ring our home phone are our Baby Boomers parents, to the point where we play a game and guess who is calling before we pick up the phone (using Caller ID would take the fun out of it).
How attached are you to your landline? How long until they go the way of gas street lamps and morning milk deliveries?
1. What does paragraph 2 mainly tell us about mobile phones?| A．Their target users. | B．Their wide popularity. |
| C．Their major functions. | D．Their complex design. |
| A．Admit. | B．Argue. |
| C．Remember. | D．Remark. |
| A．They like smartphone games. | B．They enjoy guessing callers’ identity. |
| C．They keep using landline phones. | D．They are attached to their family. |
| A．It remains a family necessity. |
| B．It will fall out of use some day. |
| C．It may increase daily expenses. |
| D．It is as important as the gas light. |
2 . Life in the future will be very different from that today. Between then and now many changes will take place (发生), but what will the changes be?
The population is growing fast. There will be many people in the world and most of them will live longer than people now. Computers will be much smaller and more useful, and there will be at least one in every home. And computer studies will be one of the most important subjects at school then.
People will work fewer hours than they do now and they will have more free time for sports, watching TV and travelling. Travelling will be much easier and cheaper. And more people will go to other countries for holidays.
Work in the future will be different too. Robots(机器人) can do dangerous and hard work. Because of this, many people will not have enough work to do. This will be a problem.
1. In the future, most people will _________ than people now.| A．live shorter | B．live longer | C．get taller | D．get shorter |
| A．much bigger and few people will use it |
| B．much smaller and more useful |
| C．smaller and not many people will use it |
| D．bigger and a lot of people will use it |
| A．do dangerous work | B．do all the work |
| C．do interesting work | D．do easy work |
| A．Life in the past | B．Changes of computers |
| C．Robots in the future | D．Life in the future |
3 . The future home is something that people have talked about for decades. Because the future home idea inspires our imagination, scientists and engineers have been working hard to develop different systems to make houses “smarter”.
The video camera at the entrance recognize visitors using facial recognition. The facial recognition software of the future home will not only recognize friends, but strangers as well. And the software in the future home will run the strangers faces against a database of criminals.
The future home will also have smart application appliances (家电) as well. There will be a vast networking system connecting them. Ovens, microwaves and refrigerators will be controlled automatically, so remote cooking will be a possibility and meals are prepared for your arrival.
There will also be a green systems in place such as saving and reusing washing water and bathwater. Plants and people may receive pure or mineralized (含矿的) drinking water.
If you think this future home idea is pie in the sky or science fiction, then think again. Most of the systems described here are either in development or already out in the market. Future homes may not be standard yet for the middle class but this is not as far ahead as many people would think.
1. What can the facial recognition software be used for in the future houses?| A．Greeting friends. | B．Collecting criminals information. |
| C．Recognizing visitors. | D．Following dangerous criminals. |
| A．Facial recognition software. | B．Remote cooking. |
| C．Smart refrigerators. | D．Saving and reusing water. |
| A．Attractive. | B．Common. | C．Special. | D．Excellent. |
| A．Smart future home |
| B．A smart networking system |
| C．Software in future home |
| D．Various household appliances |
4 . By 2050 we’ll be able to send memories, emotions and feelings across the Internet.
I’m talking about telepathy (心灵感应), really. We’ll still communicate the traditional way.
Medicine will develop fast, too. We will have cured certain forms of cancer, and we will have begun to treat the disease like the common cold. We’ll live with it. It will no longer be deadly.
| A．We will do a few tests. |
| B．People will live an easy life. |
| C．We won’t fear it like we used to. |
| D．Brain science will have changed communication. |
| E．We can already use human cells to grow skin, noses, ears, etc. |
| F．But communicating telepathically will avoid misunderstandings between people. |
| G．Our clothes will discover the beginnings of a heart disease, and advise us to get treatment. |
In the future, we
6 . The sea could be the food bowl of the future. In Jervis Bay, south of Sydney, seaweed, which is rich in fibre and omega 3, is grown and harvested.
Pia Winberg is a marine scientist who runs Australia's first food-grade fanned seaweed company. Her crop is grown alongside mussels (贻贝)and is used as an additive in pasta (意大利面)and other products.
Seaweed is also raised in large tanks, where it absorbs carbon dioxide waste from a wheat processing factory. The business is small, but could help to reduce the ecological footprint of traditional farming.
“We used ten percent of seaweed instead of wheat in breads and pastas, we've eliminated a million hectares of land, we've eliminated all of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with that, and we've also reduced the pressures on very precious fresh water.” said Pia Winberg.
Spiny sea urchins (多刺海胆虫)are another blue economy resource. They can destroy marine habitats, but a recent competition for environmental start-ups in Australia, saw them not as a pest but a delicacy (美味).
Martina Doblin, CEO of Sydney Institute of Marine Science, said, “By 2050 we will have some ten billion people on the planet, and about half the food they eat will come from the ocean. So, we really do need to pay attention to the way that we manage the blue economy-generating wealth from the ocean but in a sustainable (可持续的)way.”
Farming at sea has its challenges. Infrastructure (基础设施)has to be sound, as do supply chains and biosecurity. But get these things right, and the ocean might just be the next great economic frontier.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．To lead to the main topic. |
| B．To describe a new kind of seaweed. |
| C．Tell how important the food safety is. |
| D．To explain the meaning of blue economy. |
| A．Ocean exploration has made little progress so far. |
| B．More and more people will die of hunger in the future. |
| C．More work is needed for a better use of the natural resources. |
| D．Sea farming will be a good way to solve the coming world food problem. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Objective. | C．Tolerant. | D．Negative. |
| A．How to Protect the Marine Animals |
| B．Measures to Develop Blue Economy |
| C．Farming the Sea for the Future of Food |
| D．Traditional Farming is Gradually Disappearing |
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（^），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1．每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2．只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
There is two reasons why my classmates don’t think we are ready for cloning. Firstly, we can't predict all the consequence of cloning. What would happen if scientists cloned other Hitler or someone like him? Secondly, we don’t know exact what the meaning of life is. Create life is not our duty. We couldn’t completely understand the relationships among lives that are defined by the nature. As far as I'm concerned, even though cloning may have a lot benefits for humans, we should stop cloning after we can control all of its effects. Maybe in the future we can, and the right time has not yet arrived.
8 . We don’t know how different our life will be in the future. We can only try to imagine it.
At first we think about human relationships. In the year 2050, we will use computers almost every day. We will be making new friends through the Internet even our husbands or wives will be met in this way. It will be much faster and easier for us. On the other hand, our relationships with people won’t be as important as they are today -- we will feel a little lonely.
Computers will also help us in many other activities in 2050. For example, they will be used by the children at school to make their learning easier. In addition, there will be much more other machines which will play a similar role as computers, like robots which will do the housework for us.
Spending holidays will also be completely different. Travelling to other planets or to the moon will be available for everyone. Means of transport will, of course, change, too. We will be using solar-powered cars, which will be much more environmentally friendly.
We could expect that the faster technological progress would lead to a more polluted environment. But it isn’t true. We will pay more attention to the environment protection. Scientists will probably find cures for many dangerous diseases, like cancer or AIDS. Therefore, our surroundings as well as our health will be in better condition.
Although we can’t predict the exact changes which will be made in the world, we often think about them. We worry about our and our children’s future; we have expectations, hopes as well as fears. But I think we should be rather sanguine about our future. We should be happy and believe good things will happen.
1. Why will people probably feel a little lonely in 2050?| A．The number of people will become much smaller. |
| B．There will be less face-to-face communication. |
| C．People won’t like making friends with each other. |
| D．People won’t communicate with each other much often. |
| A．Computers will do all the things for human beings. |
| B．How people will use computers to communicate with each other. |
| C．Machines like computers and robots will help people a lot. |
| D．How people will use robots to do the housework. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Surprised. |
| C．Curious. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．How people will communicate in the year 2050. |
| B．What our life will be like in the year 2050. |
| C．How people will travel and spend their holidays in the year 2050. |
| D．What high technology will appear in the year 2050. |
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（＼）划掉。
修改：在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
People are always asking me what I want to be when I grew up. My answers are difference from time to time — scientist, professor, political leader — so the theme remains the same. I want to be someone which makes a difference in the world. To be honest, I want change the way people think. Whatever I do it in life, I know there will have some people who disagree with my values. When this happens, I will think about what great people will do in your situation. That’s why I often spend time read books about the life stories of famous people. I do hope I can do as much as possibly for society.
10 . Do you want to live another 100 years or more? Some experts say that scientific advances will one day enable humans to last tens of years beyond what is now seen as the natural limit of the human life span.
“I think we are knocking at the door of immortality(永生),” said Michael Zey, a Montclair State University business professor and author of two books on the future. “I think by 2075 we will see it and that’s a conservative estimate(保守的估计).”
At the conference in San Francisco, Donald Louria, a professor at New Jersey Medical School in Newark said advances in using genes as well as nanotechnology(纳米技术) make it likely that humans will live in the future beyond what was possible in the past. “There is a great effort so that people can live from 120 to 180 years,” he said. “Some have suggested that there is no limit and that people could live to 200 or 300 or 500 years.”
However, many scientists who specialize in aging are doubtful about it and say the human body is just not designed to last past about 120 years. Even with healthier lifestyles and less disease, they say failure of the brain and organs will finally lead all humans to death.
Scientists also differ on what kind of life the super aged might live. “It remains to be seen if you pass 120, you know; could you be healthy enough to have good quality of life?” said Leonard Poon, director of the University of Georgia Gerontology Centre. “At present people who could get to that point are not in good health at all.”
1. By saying“we are knocking at the door of immortality”,Michael Zey means_________.| A．they have got some ideas about living forever |
| B．they believe that there is no limit of living |
| C．they are able to make people live past the present life span |
| D．they are sure to find the truth about long living |
| A．the human body is designed to last past about 120 years |
| B．it is possible for humans to live longer in the future |
| C．it is still doubtful how long humans can live |
| D．people can live from 120 to 180 |
| A．a great effort |
| B．the conservative estimate |
| C．the idea of living from 200 to 300 years |
| D．the idea of living beyond the present life span |
| A．No Limit for Human Life |
| B．Living Longer or not |
| C．Science,Technology and Long Living |
| D．Healthy Lifestyle and Long Living |
