1 . Created in the 1920s by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect who designed the red public telephone boxes, which can be seen all over the UK, are regarded as one of the most typical symbols of this country.

However, public phones have had their day despite their lovely appearance. While coin-operated and card-operated telephones are on the edge of extinction (灭绝), mobile phones are playing a significant role in people’s lives. Though they are more portable, flexible and widely used, mobile phones have their kryptonite: battery life. Instead of destroying the phone booths, a project was then promoted to recycle and reuse them. To meet the environment-friendly need, people are allowed to rent or use the red phone boxes in a new way. Therefore, they are making an unusual comeback.

When you take a walk down Tottenham Court Road in London and find your mobile phone in a low-battery condition, there happens to be a green option for you. The abandoned phone booths are being reused as free charging stations powered by solar energy.

Inside the booths, which are newly painted green, there are various adaptors (适配器) that can be connected to different brands and models of mobile phones. Just walk in, plug your phone in, and charge it up whenever it needs power. Most people would stay inside the boxes while they charge. Fully aware of this when starting the project, Solarbox can now reach a large number of people by displaying ads on solid equipment (实体设备). Its advertisers include well-known companies like Uber.

Apart from changing phone booths into solar-powered charging stations, other forms of changes can be found in and outside the UK. For example, there is medical equipment or minilibraries adapted from phone booths, while in America, thousands of phone booths have been transformed into wi-fi hot spots.

1. What does the underlined word “kryptonite” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Interest.	B．Strength.
C．Weakness.	D．Feature.

2. What is an important factor that makes Solarbox start the project?

A．New function.	B．Advertising profit.
C．People’s love.	D．Companies’ support.

3. What does the author think of the transformed phone boxes?

A．Useless.	B．Troublesome.
C．Costly.	D．Convenient.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．The future of the public phone.	B．The comeback of the phone boxes.
C．The rise and fall of the red boxes.	D．The ups and downs of the payphone.