题目内容
A car that runs on coffee is unveiled（shown to the public for the first time）today but at between 25 and 50 times the cost of running a car on petrol, the invention won’t please any motor industry accountants.
Nicknamed the Car-puccino, it has been created using a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco bought for £400 and it was chosen because it looked like the time-traveling DeLorean in the movie Back To The Future.The car will be driven the 210 miles between Manchester and London powered only by roasted coffee granules （颗粒）.It has been built by a team from the BBC1 science programme Bang Goes The Theory and will go on display at the Big Bang science fair in Manchester to show how fuels other than traditional petrol can power vehicles.
The team calculates the Car-puccino will do three miles per kilo of ground coffee （咖啡粉） — about 56 cups of espressos （浓咖啡） per mile.The journey will use about 70 kilos of ground coffee which, at supermarket prices of between £13 and £26 a kilo depending on brand and quality, will cost between £910 and £1,820, or between 25 and 50 times the £36 cost of petrol for the journey.In total, the trip will cost 11,760 espressos, and the team will have to take ‘coffee breaks’ roughly every 30 to 45 miles to pour in more granules.They will also have to stop about every 60 miles to clean out the ‘coffee filters’ to rid them of the soot and tar which is also generated by the process.So despite a top speed of 60mph, the many stops mean the going will be slow, with the journey taking around ten hours.
Sadly, the inventors will still have to pay duty on their coffee fuel---even though tax collectors at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Custom haven’t yet worked out how much.
Nick Watson, producer of Bang Goes The Theory, said, “Coffee, like wood or coal, has some carbon content so you can use it as a fuel.The coffee needs to be very dry and in granules to allow the air to move through the pile of coffee as it burns.The brand doesn’t matter.” He said the same technology could be used to power a car on other unusual fuels, such as woodchips or nut shells, construction or agricultural waste.
- 1.
Which is the right way to choose the coffee used as fuels to run the Car-puccino?
- A.It should be very dry.
- B.The stronger, the better.
- C.The smaller the granules are, the better.
- D.It should be of a certain brand.
- A.
- 2.
What can be inferred from the passage?
- A.All kinds of materials can be used as fuels.
- B.The Car-puccino will be put into the market soon.
- C.Nick Watson is the designer of the Car-puccino
- D.Much remains to be improved for the Car-puccino.
- A.
- 3.
The Car-puccino has its disadvantages EXCEPT that ________.
- A.it makes a lot of noise
- B.it runs at a very high cost
- C.it has to stop to be refueled very often
- D.it’s not good enough for long-distance journey
- A.
- 4.
How much ground coffee will be used to cover a distance of 126 miles in this car?
- A.About 70 kilos
- B.About 42 kilos.
- C.About 32 kilos
- D.About 30 kilos
- A.
- 5.
Why can coffee be used as a fuel?
- A.It looks like wood or coal.
- B.It contains some carbon content.
- C.It is very cheap.
- D.It is much better than woodchips or nut shells.
- A.
阅读快车系列答案What time is it？Most people are pretty accurate in their answer. And if you don’t know for sure, it’s very likely tha
t you can find out. There may be a watch on your wrist; there may be a clock on the wall, desk, or computer screen; or maybe you’re riding in a car that has a clock in the dashboard .
Even if you don’t have a timepiece of some sort nearby, your body keeps its own beat. Humans have an internal clock that regulates (调节) the beating of our heart, the peace of our breathing, the discharge (排出) of chemicals within our bloodstream, and many other bodily functions.
Time is something from which we can’t escape. Even if we ignore it, it’s still going by, ticking away, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour. So the main issue in using your time well is, “who’s in charge？” We can allow time to slip by and let it be our enemy. Or we can take control of it and make it our ally.
By taking control of how you spend your time, you’ll increase your chances of becoming a more successful student. Perhaps more importantly, the better you are at managing the time you devote to your studies, the more time you will have to spend on your outside interests.
The aim of time management is not to schedule every moment so we become slaves of a timetable that governs every waking moment of the day. Instead, the aim is to permit us to make informed choices as to how we use our time. Rather than letting the day go by, largely without our awareness, what we are going to discuss next can make us better able to control time for our own purposes.
【小题1】The underlined word “ally” in Para.3 most likely means somebody or something that is____________.
| A．your slave and serves you | B．your supporter an helps you |
C．un der your control and obeys you | D．under your influence and follows you |
| A．could be regulated by a timepiece such as a clock or a watch |
| B．could be managed by the internal clock by human bodies |
| C．should be well managed for our own interest |
| D．should be saved for outside interests |
| A．how to keep up with the times | B．how to make up for lost ti me |
| C．how to have a good time | D．how to make good use of time |
If cars had wings, they could fly and that just might happen, beginning in 2012. The company Terrafugia, based in Woburn, Massachusetts, says it plans to deliver its car-plane, the Transition, to customers by the end of 2012.
“It’s next ‘wow’ vehicle,” said Terrafugia vice president Richard Gersh. “Anybody can buy a Ferrari, but as we say, Ferraris don’t fly.”
The car-plane has wings that unfold for flying-a process the company says takes one minute-and fold back up for driving. A runway is still required to take off and land.
The Transition is being marketed more as a plane that drives than a car that flies, although it is both. The company has been working with FAA to meet aircraft regulations, and with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to meet vehicle safety regulations.
The company is aiming to sell the Transition to private pilots as a more convenient and cheaper way to fly. They say it saves you the trouble from trying to find another mode of transportation to get to and from airports: You drive the car to the airport and then you’re good to go. When you land, you hold up the wings and hit the road. There are no expensive parking fees because you don’t have to store it at an airport-you park it in the garage at home.
The car-plane is designed to fly primarily under 10,000 feet. It has a maximum takeoff weight of 1,430 pounds, including fuel and passengers. Thrrafugia says the Transition reduces the potential for an accident by allowing pilots to drive under the bad weather instead of flying into marginal(临界的) conditions.
The Transition’s price tag: $194,000. But there may be additional charges for options like a radio, , a transponder or a GPS. Another option is a full-plane parachute.
“If you get into a very awful situation, it is the necessary safety option.” Gersh said.
So far, the company has more than 70 orders with deposits. “We’re working very closely with them, but there are still some remaining steps,” Brown said.
【小题1】We can learn from the first two paragraphs that _________.
| A．car-planes will be popular in 2012-4-6 |
| B．people might drive a car-plane in 2012 |
| C．both the Transition and Ferrari can take off and land |
| D．Richard Gersh is the vice president of Massachusetts |
| A．fold and unfold its wings | B．unfold wings for flying |
| C．land in the airport | D．meet flying safety regulations |
A. The car-plane needs a runway to take off and land.
B. To meet aircraft regulations, the company has been working with FAA.
C. The car-plane may fly as high as normal planes.
D. People can park the car-plane in the garage at their home.