1. How did Mark get there?
A.By train and by car. |
B.By plane and by car. |
C.By train and by bus. |
A.Room 501 on the third floor. |
B.Room 551 on the first floor. |
C.Room 501 on the first floor. |
A.9:10. | B.9:30. | C.9:20. |
2 . If you want to travel from Xi’an to Chengdu by train, it will take about 16 hours. But starting this month, the new Xi’an-Chengdu high-speed railway will shorten this travel time to three hours.
The 643-kilometer line is China’s first high-speed railway to run through the Qinling Mountains, which form a natural boundary (分界线) between China’s north and south. With a speed of 250 km per hour, it’s also the first mountain-heavy train line to provide a 4G network. Along the way, the train passes through two areas for rare wild animals — one for pandas and the other for crested ibises (朱鹮).
To reduce the railway’s influence on the animals, workers and experts have designed and built the railway to be environmentally friendly. There were 345 wild pandas living in the Qinling Mountains. China currently has 1, 864 wild pandas in total, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
To avoid disturbing the pandas, the railway was designed to run through tunnels within the area. Protective shields (防护屏) are placed near the entrance of each tunnel to stop animals from going in.
To protect the thousands of crested ibises that fly near one part of the railway, protective nets have been set up to make sure the birds will not fly into a train.
The nets are about 32 km long and 4 meters high. Experts tested different shapes and materials for building the nets before making their final choice.
1. From this month, it will take ______to travel from Xi’an to Chengdu by the high-speed train.A.16 hours | B.13 hours |
C.6 hours | D.3 hours |
A.It runs through the Qinling Mountains. |
B.It is China’s first high-speed railway. |
C.It is the best mountain-heavy train line. |
D.The train passes through many areas for rare wild animals. |
A.To save money and energy. |
B.To avoid harming wild animals. |
C.To avoid damaging the mountains. |
D.To help the train run through tunnels quietly. |
A.Protective shields and nets. |
B.How to protect pandas and crested ibises. |
C.Qinling Mountains. |
D.Xi’an-Chengdu high-speed railway. |
1. What did the woman get yesterday?
A.The key to her apartment. |
B.A copy of the house rules. |
C.A parking space for her motorbike. |
A.At the entrance to her apartment building. |
B.On the street beside her apartment building. |
C.On the sidewalk in front of her apartment building. |
A.Take a bus to work. |
B.Attend the next house owner’s meeting. |
C.Have a talk with the apartment manager. |
A.He was late for the party. | B.He would call a taxi. | C.He drank some water. |
5 . Towards the end of the 1985 sci-fi classic Back to the Future, the inventor Doc Brown announces “where we’re going, we don’t need roads as the car lifts into the air”. While flying cars aren’t yet filling our skies, many are in development. In October the Chinese XPeng X2 successfully completed the first public test flight of its two-seater flying car in Dubai.
The XPeng X2 lifts vertically off the ground using eight propellers (螺旋桨), without the need for a runway, and is therefore suitable for built-up city areas. The vehicle, designed to carry two passengers, is fully electric and its makers say it can rise through the air at around two meters per second and then reach speeds of up to 80 miles per hour. The XPeng X2 is equipped with AI automation — it can be set to self-drive. It learns how to avoid traffic, buildings and people. It does not produce any carbon dioxide emissions during flight and is a step forward in the pursuit of urban green transportation. It is suitable for future low-altitude city flights and is perfect for short-distance city journeys such as sightseeing and medical transportation.
Although the test flight lasted just 90 seconds, according to Dr. Liu, chief aviation specialist at Xpeng Aeroht, the technology is close to being ready for public use, but regulations on flying cars are still some way off. Liu believes that people will be able to use flying cars within limited regulated spaces in just five years. This lines up pretty well with the Chinese government’s plan to put flying taxis on the market by 2025. The self-driving function presents further difficulties with regulation and also throws into question public acceptance. Many people are worried about the safety issues around self-driving cars on the ground, let alone vehicles that are flying around above their heads. However, Peng says it is safer for its flying car to be self-driving than to be driven by a human.
There are lots of flying cars in development now around the world and many of them actually fly, like Opener’s “BlackFly”, SkyDriver’s “SD-03’’and Klein Vision’s “AirCar” — which made a successful 35-minute test flight between two cities in Slovakia in 2021.
1. Why does the author mention the 1985 sci-fi classic Back to the Future?A.To introduce the topic | B.To recommend the movie |
C.To provide background information | D.To make a prediction |
A.The popularity of XPeng X2. | B.The advantages of XPeng X2. |
C.The limitation of XPeng X2. | D.The prospect of XPeng X2. |
A.XPeng X2 can carry two passengers at a speed of 80miles per hour. |
B.XPeng X2 is close to finishing the first public test fight. |
C.XPeng X2 has already been launched on the market at present. |
D.XPeng X2 has been widely accepted by the public now. |
A.Science fiction | B.Film review |
C.Science & Technology | D.Historical events |
A.They are late for work. |
B.They get stuck in traffic. |
C.They have lost their way. |
1. Why does Joshua make the call?
A.To check the time. | B.To ask for advice. | C.To make an apology. |
A.In Cider Street. | B.On Elmer Road. | C.In Poplar Street. |
A.Maria’s house. | B.Weston Hospital. | C.The National Bank. |
A.To his office. | B.To a meeting room. | C.To the front desk. |
Traveling by train in China is a cost-effective, comfortable, and safe mode of transportation. The train cabins are well-maintained and
Trains leave and arrive on schedule, and there are seldom any delays,
Chinese train is not only a convenient transportation when
10 . Over the last seven years, most states have banned texting by drivers, and public service campaigns have tried a wide range of methods to persuade people to put down their phones when they are behind the wheel.
Yet the problem, by just about any measure, appears to be getting worse. Americans are still texting while driving, as well as using social networks and taking photos. Road accidents, which had fallen for years, are now rising sharply.
That is partly because people are driving more, but Mark Rosekind, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said distracted driving was “only increasing, unfortunately.”
“Big change requires big ideas.” he said in a speech last month, referring broadly to the need to improve road safety. So to try to change a distinctly modern behavior, lawmakers and public health experts are reaching back to an old approach: They want to treat distracted driving like drunk driving.
An idea from lawmakers in New York is to give police officers a new device called the Textalyzer. It would work like this: An officer arriving at the scene of a crash could ask for the phones of the drivers and use the Textalyzer to check in the operating system for recent activity. The technology could determine whether a driver had just texted, emailed or done anything else that is not allowed under New York’s hands-free driving laws.
“We need something on the books that can change people’s behavior,” said Félix W. Ortiz, who pushed for the state’s 2001 ban on hand-held devices by drivers. If the Textalyzer bill becomes law, he said, “people are going to be more afraid to put their hands on the cell phone.”
1. How was the original ban on drivers’ texting in the US?A.Insignificant. | B.Irregular. | C.Irresistible. | D.Ineffective. |
A.Road accidents are now rising sharply. | B.Americans are still texting while driving. |
C.Too many people are driving after drinking. | D.Drivers are using social networks and taking photos. |
A.Identify drivers’ location. | B.Test drivers’ speed. |
C.Check drivers’ cell phone. | D.Predict drivers’ destination. |
A.He made the ban to punish distracted driving. |
B.He proposed the law to regulate drivers’ behaviors. |
C.He invented the Textalyzer to test drivers’ behaviors. |
D.He advised to improve the next generation cell phone. |