题目内容
Dr．Smith, together with his wife and daughters, ______visit 
A．is gong to B．are going to C．was going to D．were going to
A
解析：考查动词时态和主谓一致。主语中心词 Dr. Smith 为单数，因此谓语动词用单数形式；时间状语是this summer，表将来，故用一般将来时，选A。
A study by St.. Louis University has found that a lovable dog named Sparky and a robotic dog, AIBO, were about equally effective at reducing the loneliness of nursing home residents. The study confirmed previous findings that dogs have a good effect on nursing home residents.
Dr. Andrew Smith led the Stanford University team that built a home-assistance robot. “If humans can feel an emotional tie with robots, some day they could be not just our assistants, but also our companions,” he said.
To test whether residents responded better to Sparky, a trained dog, or the Sony-made robotic dog, researchers divided 38 nursing home residents into three groups at three long-term care centers in St. Louis.
One group had weekly 30-minute one-on-one visits with Sparky; another group had similar visits with AIBO; a control group had no contact with either dog. The groups’ respective levels of loneliness were tested by having them answer a number of questions at the beginning and near the end of the visits.
After two months, both groups that had contact with the dogs were less lonely and more attached. Most of the elderly regarded Sparky, a 9-year-old dog, as an audience for their life stories, said investigator Marian Banks.
“He listened attentively, wagged his tail, and allowed them to pet him,” said Banks, who adopted and trained Sparky after finding him in a street behind her home seven years ago.
Those who were together with AIBO took a little longer to warm to the robotic creature. Over time, however, they grew comfortable with him, and petted and talked to him. He would respond by wagging his tail, vocalizing, and blinking his lights..
“AIBO is charming once you start to interact with him,” said the study’s author, Dr. William Banks, “He’s an attractive sort of guy. He gives a feeling of being personal, not just a robot.”
【小题1】Before the new study, it was known that ____.
| A．robots were effective at reducing people’s loneliness |
| B．robots could build close connection with humans |
| C．dogs could help get rid of old people’s loneliness |
| D．dogs and robots were equally effective at reducing loneliness |
| A．they didn’t feel comfortable with it |
| B．it was hard for them to interact with it |
| C．they weren’t comfortable with it at first |
| D．the robot’s vocalizing and blinking confused them |
| A．robots are better at caring for old people than nurses |
| B．robots can to some degree replace dogs as companions for old people |
| C．it’s easy for people to become close with robots |
| D．every home will have a robot assistant one day |
| A．Robots Serve People Better Than Thought |
| B．No More Lonely Old Age with Emotional Robots |
| C．Advanced Technology Used to cheer up the Elderly |
| D．Robots and Dogs Can Equally Cheer up the Elderly |
Still waiting for little green men to make contact? Don't hold your breath.
A leading astronomer has concluded there probably aren't any aliens out there – meaning we are absolutely alone in the universe.
Even though there may be tens of thousands of other distant planets similar in size to Earth, the conditions on them are likely to be too hard to support life-forms such as ET.
Dr Howard Smith, a senior astrophysicist at Harvard University, believes there is very little hope of discovering aliens and, even if we did, it would be almost impossible to make contact.
So far astronomers have discovered a total of 500 planets in distant solar systems – known as extrasolar systems – although they believe billions of others exist.
But Dr Smith points out that many of these planets are either too close to the sun or too far away, meaning their surface temperatures are so bad that they could not support life. Others have unusual orbits which cause vast temperature variations, making it impossible for water to exist – the most important thing for life.
Dr Smith said, "We have found that most other planets and solar systems are wildly different from our own. It means it is highly unlikely there are any planets with intelligent life close enough for us to make contact." But his suggestions contradict other leading scientists who have claimed aliens almost certainly exist.
Only last month Professor Stephen Hawking said the fact that there are billions of galaxies out there made it reasonable to think there were other life-forms in the universe.
Researchers from the University of London have recently suggested that aliens could be living on as many as 40,000 other planets. But Dr Smith said: "Any hope of contact has to be limited to a relatively tiny space around the Earth, reaching maybe 1,250 light years out from our planet, where aliens might be able to pick up our signals or send us their own. But communicating would still take decades or centuries."
【小题1】By saying ＂don’t hold your breath＂, the author advised the reader not to _____.
| A．keep silent | B．give up | C．expect so | D．be afraid |
| A．are too far away from the earth |
| B．are different from the Earth in size |
| C．don’t have rich natural resources |
| D．don’t have a suitable living environment |
| A．they have better explanations about aliens |
| B．aliens certainly exist on many planets |
| C．they disagree with Dr Smith’s suggestion |
| D．aliens can pick up signals from the earth |
| A．There must be other life forms in the universe. |
| B．We can communicate with aliens in decades. |
| C．The chances of finding aliens are slight. |
| D．Many other planets are quite different from the Earth. |
It was a beautiful day at the beach—blue sky, gentle wind, calm sea．I knew these things because a man sitting five feet from me was shouting them into his mobile phone, like a play-by-play announcer （实况解说员）.
“IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY,” he shouted．“THE SKY IS BLUE, AND THERE’S A GENTLE WIND, AND THE WATER IS CALM, AND…”
Behind me, a woman, her mobile phone pressed to her ear was walking back and forth.
“She DIDN’T,” she was saying．“No．She DIDN’T．She DID? Really? Are you SERIOUS? She did NOT．She DID? No she…”
And so on．This woman had two children, who were playing in the sea．I found myself watching them, because the woman surely was not．A huge squid could have caught and snatched the children, and this woman would not have noticed．Or, if she had noticed, she’d have said, “Listen．I have to go, because a huge squid just……No! She didn’t ! She DID? No! She……”
And next to me, the play-by-play man would have said: “…AND A HUGE SQUID JUST ATE TWO CHILDREN, AND I’M GETTING A LITTLE SUNBURNED, AND …”
It used to be that the major trouble at the beach was the fellow who brought a boom box （便携式录音机） and turned it up so loud that the bass notes caused seagulls to explode．But at least you knew where these fellows were; you never know which beachgoers have mobile phones．You’ll settle next to what appears to be a sleeping sunbather, or even （you hope） a corpse , and you’ll lie happily on your towel, and you’ll get all the way to the second sentence of your 467-page book before you fall asleep to the hypnotic surge of the surf （催人入梦的潮声）, and …
BREEP! BREEP! The corpse sits up, feels urgently for its mobile phone, and shouts “Hello! I’m at the beach! Yes! It’s nice! Very peaceful! What? She did? No, she didn’t! She DID? No, she…”
Loud mobile-phoners never seem to get urgent calls．Just once, I’d like to hear one of them say, “Hello? Yes, this is Dr．Johnson．Oh, Dr．Smith．You’ve opened the abdominal cavity （腹腔）? Good! Now the appendix should be right under the … What? No, that’s the liver．Don’t take THAT out, ha ha! Oh, you did? My God! OK, now listen carefully…”
1.From the passage we can know that the writer of the passage _____.
|
A．had a wonderful holiday at the beach |
|
B．must have suffered a lot because of the terrible weather |
|
C．is only interested in talks by doctors about operation |
|
D．experienced an unhappy holiday at the beach |
2.According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?
|
A．The writer often spends his holidays at the beach. |
|
B．A huge squid ate two children while their mother was not watching. |
|
C．Some people used to play boom box while spending their holidays at the beach. |
|
D．Some people often make loud mobile phone calls without caring for others. |
3.The underlined word“ corpse”in this passage has the closest meaning to________.
|
A．a dead body |
B．a loud mobile phone |
|
C．a sound sleeper |
D．a sleep lover |
4.In the past the fellow who brought a boom box_________.
|
A．turned it up to make the seagulls happy |
|
B．turned it up to cause the seagulls to explode |
|
C．might cause less trouble than the beachgoers with mobile phones |
|
D．might cause more trouble than the beachgoers with mobile phones |
5.We can infer from the passage that _______.
|
A．the writer is interested in mobile phone. |
|
B．the writer hates people using mobile phone |
|
C．the writer hates to be disturbed while enjoying holidays on the beach. |
|
D．the writer seldom finishes reading a book before going to sleep. |