1 . Much like a smartphone, your body will go to sleep when there are no new inputs. When you are on a bus, your senses will give you the same repetitive inputs. The streets will flow by, the engine adds constant white noise, you’re seated and not moving, and the smell... well you hope the smell doesn’t change.

Any repetitive input going to your brain will eventually be ignored and your brain will start going into a low energy state. The fact that you fall asleep quickly when closing your eyes on a bus is because you were already on the bus for a while and got used to all the repetitive sensory data.

When you go to bed, you have a lot of new changes. You are lying down, you wear different clothes, you feel the pressure of your covers, you go from bright to dark, noisy to quiet. All of these are new sensory inputs that your brain needs to get used to before going to sleep.

A laboratory experiment to investigate the effects of whole-body vibration (震动) on seated human alertness and sleepiness was carried out. Vibration was applied to the volunteers sitting on the vehicle seat on the vibration platform. Volunteers for this investigation included 18 young male and healthy university students. None of the volunteers had a history of neck pain, diseases of the cervical spine or musculoskeletal disorders. Seated volunteers were exposed to a Gaussian random vibration, with 1–15 Hz frequency bandwidth at 0.2 ms⁻² r.m.s., for 20-minutes.

The results suggest that exposure to vibration even for 20-minutes can cause significant sleepiness. The data clearly show that exposure to vibration has considerable influence on subjective sleepiness levels, and more importantly, human reaction times and decrease of attention.

Drowsy driving has been reported to account for approximately 20% of accidents worldwide. In Australia, 16.6% of total road deaths were caused by sleep-related accidents in 1998 alone. It is well established that sleepiness caused by extended hours of driving has considerable influence on driver performance, therefore, compromising transportation safety.

These findings need to be further proved particularly in relation to driving behavior. This line of research can then assist in the development of practical and relevant guidelines for limitation of vibration exposure in the automotive industry, in an effort to reduce the burden of road accidents. That’s something for both car manufacturers and road safety experts to think about.

1. According to the passage, why do we fall asleep quickly on the bus?

A．Because we meet a lot of new changes.

B．Because the surroundings become quiet.

C．Because we get used to the repetitive sensory data.

D．Because our senses give us different kinds of inputs.

2. What is the purpose of the experiment?

A．To investigate people’s sleeping hours and situation.

B．To research whether vibration can affect people’s health.

C．To study the relationship between inputs and people’s attention.

D．To find out how shaking affects people’s sleepiness in the vehicle.

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Sleepy driving is the main cause of road accidents.

B．The research has helped to reduce the burden of road accidents.

C．The findings of the experiment have been recognized by road safety experts.

D．The research results can give some implications to the automobile production.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards the findings?

A．Positive.	B．Negative.
C．Disappointed.	D．Indifferent.

2 . Does Using Technology in the Classroom Help College Students?

Almost anywhere in the world, you are likely to find people doing the same thing in public places, on trains and buses or wherever else you look. They spend their day looking at laptop computers, smartphones or other personal electronic devices. They are thinking mainly about their electronic devices, and not much else.

    1    . More and more college students have no problem walking into a classroom and immediately opening their laptops. Others may spend an entire study period with a smartphone in hand.     2     But recent research suggests that using technology during class time may harm college students’ ability to remember and process the subject material they are learning.

Arnold Glass, a professor in Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and a student researcher investigated the issue of divided student attention. During half of their daily class periods, the students in their study were permitted to use any electronic device as much as they wanted.     3    

The students’ academic performance was measured in several ways throughout the semester. They took a short test every day, longer tests every few weeks and a final exam covering all the class material. The researchers found that the average daily quiz results showed no evidence of harmful effects from the use of technology.     4     They showed that all the students performed poorly on questions covering material taught on days when they were permitted to use technology in the classroom.

Glass says that it shows the use of electronic devices in the classroom prevents students from processing information. The students hear what the professor is saying. But they might be buying things online or reading unrelated emails at the same time, for example. So they are not thinking deeply about the subject matter as they are hearing it.     5    

A．The same can be said about the world of college education.

B．However, the average results of the larger tests and final exam told a different story.

C．And that, Glass says, makes it harder for the information to enter their long-term memory.

D．Technology, in general, is not the only way that students find to distract themselves in class.

E．But even if technology is helpful to some students, there are times when it needs to be turned off.

F．Some students argue that the increasing use of technology can have many helpful effects on society.

G．During the other half, researchers closely watched them to make sure no one was using any technology.

3 . 在未给提示词的空白处仅填写 1个适当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Over the past few years, square dance     1     (become) a more and more popular exercise, especially among senior citizens. They often dance in the open areas in community. However, many     2     (resident) who live around are annoyed by the loud music. For example, students     3     (prepare) for important exams are     4     (deep) affected.

People may have different opinions on this issue. Some people think     5     is necessary for senior citizens to give up the hobby for the good of most people,     6     others argue that senior citizens have the right     7    （do）something they like in public places. They are both right to some extent.     8     my opinion, the authorities, instead of forcing senior citizens to stop dancing, should do something to meet everybody’s requirements. For example, they can supply some buses which can transport senior citizens to a place     9    there are few apartments around. Besides, local communities can also organize leisure activities that little noise     10     (create).

In short, there are always some good ideas that can meet the needs of people. After all, everybody has the right to live a happy and fulfilled life.

4 . Hobbies Help Cure Addiction to the Internet

While some parents have expressed concerns about the amount of time their children spent surfing the Internet during the summer break from school, it wasn’t a problem for Yin Qiming.

Instead, the 37-year-old Shanghai resident and his daughter divided their vacation between cyberspace and the 8-year-old’s other interests.

“My daughter has many hobbies and I and her mother respect her choices, so we accompany her to classes she enjoys, such as learning to play the drums and drawing,” he said.

“She loves to play outside with her friends, so she doesn’t think the Internet is a must-have thing in her life.”

Yin added that he rarely imposes a time limit on his daughter’s online activity.

“She sometimes uses WeChat (a popular instant-messaging tool) on my mobile phone, but only to contact her mother,” he said. “Once she has her own plans every day and realizes that the internet is just a part of life, she won’t become addicted to it.”

Li Lin, a primary school teacher from Liaoning province, expressed a similar opinion.

“We do some homework online, including reciting stories, and the children use the Internet frequently every day of their lives,” she said, noting that the children’s online activity is limited to 30 minutes a day at school.

“We should make better use of the Internet to provide children with more knowledge and help them to grow up,” said Li, who has a 10-year-old son.

The key to preventing children, especially those at primary and middle schools, from becoming addicted to the Internet is to limit the time they spend online and to ensure that they know cyberspace cannot replace traditional forms of communication, she said.

Mao Feizhu, a psychologist from Fujian province in southeast China, said people overestimate the influence of the internet.

“Many people, even some parents, believe the Internet plays a big role in our daily lives, and many things can be completed online, but that’s not completely right,” she said.

“We can use social applications to talk or play basketball games, and even share what we are thinking about, but sometimes it’s impossible for our emotions to be accurately reflected in this way. What children need is emotional communication and real physical exercise. After all, love cannot be bought on the net,” she said.

Perhaps, the best way to stop young netizens spending too much time online is to encourage their other interests but also accompany them when they go online: “We should use the Internet, not become its slaves.

1. What bothers lots of the parents today is that their young children ______.

A．enjoy chatting with friends online

B．are addicted to playing cell phones deeply

C．spend too much time on the Internet

D．love playing computer games too much

2. How did Yin Qiming keep his daughter free of the Internet addiction?

A．By inviting her to plan her own time limit of using the Internet.

B．By talking and playing with her frequently to spare the holiday.

C．By sparing time to accompany her developing her own hobbies.

D．By encouraging her to make enough friends in the real life.

3. According to Li Lin, the key to preventing the Internet addiction is ________.

A．to limit their time online and encourage real life communication

B．to stress the importance of friendship and making friends online

C．to make rules on surfing online and offer more online time

D．to forbid Internet use and spend more time on book-reading

4. Which of the following shows the development of ideas in the passage?
I: Introduction     CP: Central point       P: Point       Sp: Sub-point       C: Conclusion

A．	B．
C．	D．

5 . 听第7段材料，回答第8至9题。

1. What’s the average life time in the man’s country?

A．70.

B．67.

C．75.

2. How does the man think the increase of the retirement age?

A．Useless.

B．Impossible.

C．Necessary.

6 . Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high-tech devices, while driving, walking, shopping, even sitting in toilets. When connected electronically, they are away from physical reality.
People have been influenced to become technology addicted. One survey reported that “addicted” was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to iPad and similar devices. One study found that people had a harder time resisting the allure of social media than they did for sleep, cigarettes and alcohol.
The main goal of technology companies is to get people to spend more money and time on their products, not to actually improve our quality of life. They have successfully created a cultural disease. Consumers willingly give up their freedom, money and time to catch up on the latest information, to keep pace with their peers or to appear modern.
I see people trapped in a pathological (病态的) relationship with time-sucking technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them. I call this technology servitude. I am referring to a loss of personal freedom and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices that eat up time and money.
What is a healthy use of technology devices? That is the vital question. Who is really in charge of my life? That is what people need to ask themselves if we are to have any chance of breaking up false beliefs about their use of technology. When we can live happily without using so much technology for a day or a week, then we can regain control and personal freedom, become the master of technology and discover what there is to enjoy in life free of technology. Mae West is famous for the wisdom that “too much of a good thing is wonderful.” But it’s time to discover that it does not work for technology.
Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at Google acknowledged that “we can be swept away by our technologies.” To break the grand digital connection people must consider how life long ago could be fantastic without today’s overused technology.
1. The underlined word “allure” in Paragraph 2 probably means ______.

A．advantage	B．attraction
C．adaption	D．attempt

2. From the passage, technology companies aim to ______.

A．attract people to buy their products

B．provide the latest information

C．improve people’s quality of life

D．deal with cultural diseases

3. It can be inferred from this passage that people ______.

A．consider too much technology wonderful

B．have realized the harm of high-tech devices

C．can regain freedom without high-tech devices

D．may enjoy life better without overused technology

4. What’s the author’s attitude towards the overusing of high-tech devices?

A．Neutral.	B．Skeptical.
C．Disapproving.	D．Sympathetic.