The passage is about a letter    1     (write) by LiQiang who is taking    2    the prize that he won last year. At first he was nervous and     3     (certain) about the journey. However, with WangPing’s guiding, LiQiang was transported into the future     4    (safe). Hit by a lack of fresh air, his head ached and he tried to make the necessary adjustment to this new situation. Soon he was back     5    his feet again and flew after WangPing in a hovering carriage     6    (drive) by computer. Arriving at WangPing’s house, LiQiang was shown into    7    large room made of trees,     8    leaves provided the room with oxygen.     9    (exhaust), LiQiang slid into bed and only then     10    he fall fast asleep.

In the near future, we will be living in smart homes, which will ensure our    1    (safe), save us energy and provide a more comfortable environment to live in.

In the smart homes,    2    (use) advanced technology daily for automatic control of everything will be common. Our future home will use integrated sensors to tell when we leave home and then go into an energy-efficient mode all by     3    (it).

We will find our dinner already    4    ( prepare) without turning switchs on and off ourselves. It is also amazing    5    all controls will respond to voice commands.

Smart homes can help to keep serious damage from    6    (accident). For instance, if a water pipe    7    (start) leaking, our smart home will detect it. In addition, they can help monitor our health. They can also warn us early on if we have a critical sickness and    8    (potential) save our lives.

This smart technology isn’t    9    daydream or fantasy any longer. Many new innovations have become a reality. Nevertheless, it will take a few years    10    most new homes start to use this new technology.

4 . Up until a few decades ago, our visions of the future were largely—though by no means uniformly—glowingly positive. Science and technology would cure all the ills of humanity, leading to lives of fulfillment and opportunity for all.

Now utopia has grown unfashionable, as we have gained a deeper appreciation of the range of threats facing us, from asteroid strike to epidemic flu and to climate change. You might even be tempted to assume that humanity has little future to look forward to.

But such gloominess is misplaced. The fossil record shows that many species have endured for millions of years—so why shouldn’t we? Take a broader look at our species’ place in the universe, and it becomes clear that we have an excellent chance of surviving for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years. Look up homo sapiens (智人) in the “Red List” of threatened species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and you will read: “Listed as Least Concern as the species is very widely distributed, currently increasing, and there are no major threats resulting in an overall population decline.”

So what does our deep future hold? A growing number of researchers and institutions are now thinking seriously about that question. For example, the Long Now Foundation has its flagship project a mechanical clock that is designed to still be marking time thousands of years hence.

Perhaps willfully, it may be easier to think about such lengthy timescales than about the more immediate future. The potential evolution of today’s technology, and its social consequences, is dazzlingly complicated, and it’s perhaps best left to science fiction writers and futurologists to explore the many possibilities we can conceive (构想). That’s one reason why we have launched Arc, a new publication dedicated to the near future.

But take a longer view and there is a surprising amount that we can say with considerable assurance. As so often, the past holds the key to the future: we have now identified enough of the long-term patterns shaping the history of the planet, and our species, to make evidence-based forecasts about the situations in which our descendants (后代) will find themselves.

This long perspective makes the pessimistic view of our prospects seem more likely to be a passing fad (狂热). To be sure, the future is not all rosy. But we are now knowledgeable enough to reduce many of the risks that threatened the existence of earlier humans, and to improve the lot of those to come.

Have you ever forgotten to lock the door of your house or switch off the TV? These kinds of things often happen to us,     1     can lead to problems. However, in the near future, we will be living in smart homes that will lock the door and switch off the TV     2     (automatic). These smart homes will provide us with a     3     (comfortable) environment than now.

Your home will learn your daily routine and     4     (prefer), so everything will be ready for you when you get home each evening. For example, lights will come on instantly you enter the door along with     5     (you) favourite music. All controls will respond     6     voice commands, so you just say     7     you want and the home system will obey. Besides, it will give you suggestions on a healthier diet and how     8     (sleep) better.

This smart technology is not a fantasy. Many of these new     9     (innovate) are already available and being used in some homes. Nevertheless, it will take some years     10     most new homes begin to use this new technology.

Traditionally, we Chinese attach great importance to(依恋) our hometown and are often     1    (willing)to migrate to other places. However, in present times, in particular after the reform and opening-up policy was introduced, more and more people feel like     2    (settle)down in more developed cities just as my family members did.

My parents were both in Sichuan. In 1963, a time when     3    (graduate)were assigned(被任命的) jobs by the government, my father received a job in Beijing. After I was born in 1969, my parents went to work in Xinjiang.

In the 1980s, Chinese society was filled with hope, and people worked hard to achieve their dreams. So did my family. In 1988, admitted     4    Renmin University of China, I went to Beijing. It took me 72 hours by train    5    (travel)from Xinjiang to Beijing, with a distance of over 3,770 kilometers. In 1990, my brother also passed the entrance     6    (exam)and chose his favorite major and he was enrolled in a university in Guangzhou,     7    he now lives and works.

Recalling the changes over the past four decades, I think    8    (improve) transportation is very important to our family. The long distance kept us apart most of the time. Today,     9    speed and methods of transportation have been improved a lot, which has    10    (entire)transformed our life and can bring us together easily.

9 . Recently, the magazine Big Think asked top minds from a variety of fields to comment on what the future holds 40 years from now. The result is as follows.

It’s likely that by 2050 the majority of the people in the world will live in urban (城市的) areas, and will have a much higher average age than people today. Cities theorist Richard Florida thinks urbanization will reinvent the education system of the United States, making our economy less real estate (房地产) driven and erasing(消除) the divisions between home and work.

And rapidly advancing technology will continue ever more rapidly. Cities of the future won’t look like “some sort of science-fiction fantasy”, but it’s likely that technological advances and information overlays (VR and AR) will greatly change how we live. Self-driving cars will make the roads safer and provide faster transports. A larger version of driverless cars－driverless trucks － may make long-distance drivers out of date.

Some long view predictions are completely dire. Environmentalist Bill McKibben says that if we don’t make great progress in fighting global warming, it’s likely we could see out-of-control rises in sea levels, huge crop shortfalls, and wars over limited freshwater resources.

In terms of how we will eat, green markets founder and “real food” supporter Nina Planck believes that there will be more small milk processing plants, and more regional food operations and we’ll be healthier as a result. New York Times feature writer Mark Bittman thinks that people will eat fewer processed foods, and eat foods grown closer to where they live. And Anson Mills farmer Glenn Roberts thinks that more people will be aware of the “ethical(道德的) responsibility” to grow and preserve land-raised farm systems.

The great changes in my hometown in the past decade