题目内容

【题目】 Stories are shared in many ways. They are described in books and magazines. They are read around the campfire at night. They are randomly distributed from stand-alone booths. But what else?

To revive (复兴)literature in the era of fast news and smartphone addiction, Short Edition, a French publisher of short-form literature, has set up more than 30 story dispensers (分发机)in the USA in the past years to deliver fiction at the push of a button at restaurants, universities and government offices.

Francis Ford Coppola, the film director and winemaker, liked the idea so much that he invested in the company and placed a dispenser at his Cafe Zoetrope in San Francisco. Last month public libraries in some other cities announced they would be setting them up, too. There is one on the campus at Penn State. A few can be found in downtown West Palm Beach, Fla. And Short Edition plans to announce more, including at the Los Angeles International Airport.

“Everything old is new again," said Andrew Nurkin, the director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, which is one of the libraries that set up the dispensers. “We want people to be easily exposed to literature. We want to advance literacy among children and inspire their creativity.

Here's how a dispenser works It has three buttons on top indicating choices for stories that can be read in one minute, three minutes or five minutes. When a button is pushed, a short story is printed. The stories are free. They are chosen from a computer category of more than 100,000 original submissions by writers whose works have been evaluated by Short Edition's judges, and transmitted over a mobile network. Offerings can be tailored to specific interests, like children's fiction or romance. Short Edition gets stories for its category by holding writing contests.

Short Edition set up its first booth in 2016 and has 150 machines worldwide. “The idea is to make people happy," said Kristan Leroy, director of Short Edition, “There is too much unhappiness today. ”

1What do we know about the stories sent by dispensers?

A.They are expensive.

B.They are short in form.

C.They can be read on smartphones.

D.They are mainly taken from magazine literature.

2Where can you find the popularity of story dispensers in America?

A.In paragraph 3.

B.In paragraph 4.

C.In paragraph 5.

D.In paragraph 6.

3Which is the main purpose of setting up the dispensers according to Andrew Nurkin?

A.To get rid of people's smartphone addiction.

B.To reduce the financial stress of libraries.

C.To make people have access to literature.

D.To advertise the network literature.

4What is the best title for the text?

A.Online Reading: a Virtual Tour

B.Short Edition, a French Publisher

C.Everything Old Will Be Popular Again

D.Taste of Literature, at the Push of a Button

【答案】

1B

2A

3C

4D

【解析】

本文是一篇说明文。人们可以通过多种途径读到小说,例如书籍、杂志等。为了能够在快新闻时代和智能手机成瘾的时代复兴文学,法国文学出版商Short Edition过去几年在美国建立了30多个小说分发机,在餐厅,大学和政府办公室只需按一下按钮即可以阅读小说。这样人们能更容易地接触文学,以此提高孩子们的读写能力并激发他们的创造力。

1细节理解题。根据第五段中的when a button is pushed, a short story is printed”可知,按下按钮,就会打印出一篇短篇小说,因此小说在形式上是简短的。故选B

2细节理解题。根据第三段中的“he …placed a dispenser at his Cafe Zoetrope in San Francisco. Last month public libraries in some other cities announced they would be setting them up, too. There is one on the campus at Penn State. A few can be found in downtown West Palm Beach, Fla. And Short Edition plans to announce more, including at the Los Angeles International Airport.”可知,在旧金山的Cafe Zoetrope有一台小说分发机,其他一些城市的公共图书馆也宣布将安装小说分发机。宾夕法尼亚州立大学的校园里有一台小说分发机。在佛罗里达州有一些小说分发机。在洛杉矶国际机场也将有更多的小说分发机。因此在第3段中可以看出小说分发机在美国受人欢迎。故选A

3细节理解题。根据第四段中的“We want people to be easily exposed to literature. We want to advance literacy among children and inspire their creativity.”可知,Andrew Nurkin说:“我们希望人们能够很容易地接触到文学。我们希望提高孩子们的读写能力并激发他们的创造力。”因此,在Andrew Nurkin看来,设置小说分发机的主要目的是使人们有机会接触文学。故选C

4标题判断题。根据第一段中的“Stories are shared in many ways. They are described…”可知,文章提出的话题是阅读小说。根据第二段“Short Edition… has set up more than 30 story dispensers in the USA in the past years to deliver fiction at the push of a button at restaurants, universities and government offices.”可知,法国文学出版商Short Edition过去几年在美国建立了30多个小说分发机,在餐厅,大学和政府办公室只需按一下按钮即可以阅读小说。因此D项(轻按一下按钮,即可品尝文学作品。)作为标题符合文章大意。故选D

练习册系列答案
相关题目

【题目】 Humans and elephants don’t always get along. In Africa and Asia, elephants damage infrastructure (基础设施), farmers’ crops, and natural habitat critical for other species. If an elephant becomes a problem, humans may kill it. So local people and conservationists are trying to find better ways to keep elephants away from sensitive places. Now, researchers think they have a good tool to stop elephants: honeybee pheromones (信息素).

“Elephants hate being stung () in the trunk, so it’s an extremely sensitive organ. Imagine being stung in your nose by a bee, and multiply that a few thousand times.” said Mark Wright, a professor of entomology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Kenyan farmers have long known that if they hang live beehives around their farms, they will repel elephants. “The problem is logistical, how do you manage hundreds of thousands of hives, if you have a huge area to protect? And then the idea came up to look at the alarm pheromones, which are chemicals that the bee release to launch an attack on something that’s damaging the hive.” Because elephants have a highly developed sense of smell, Wright and his team thought they might be able to use the bees’ alarm signal to affect elephant behavior.

So the researchers tested out a synthetic blend (合成混合物) of chemicals that imitates honeybees’ alarm pheromones. In Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa, the team hung white socks treated with the synthetic mixture as well as untreated control socks around an elephant watering hole, and then observed the animals’ behavior. “Elephants are really curious organisms, they’ll walk along and see something like a sock hanging on a branch in the environment, and they’ll inspect it. And if it’s not treated with the alarm pheromones, they’ll pick it up, throw it around, try to taste it, things like that. And in the case of the treated ones, we found that they would show immediate signs of unease or uncertainty, and they’d eventually back off from them. Very seldom would they go to pick them up and play with them.” The study is in the journal Current Biology.

1What will the researchers do to prevent elephants from damaging human’s habitat?

A.Kill them.B.Scare them away.

C.Apply honeybee pheromones.D.Rebuild a new ecosystem.

2What does Mr. Wright think of Kenyan farmers’ method if it’s applied to a huge area?

A.Scientific.B.Flexible.C.Awesome.D.Impractical.

3Why did the researcher conduct the study?

A.To confirm what they thought.

B.To attract the elephants’ attention.

C.To preserve the elephants’ habitat.

D.To test out honeybee’s alarm pheromones.

4What’s the main idea of the text?

A.Elephants and humans don’t get along well.

B.Honeybee pheromones can keep elephants away.

C.Elephants have a highly developed sense of smell.

D.Honeybees release pheromones to launch attacks.

【题目】 Five years ago, as a new nurse working at night-time at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut, Kelly Depanfills stopped to chat with one of her favorite patients, a middle-aged man with leukemia, a type of blood disease. He was in the hospital for treatment, but what he really hoped for was a bone marrow (骨髓) transplant. He talked about “Be The Match”, a foundation that connects patients with donors. “It made me want to see if I matched with anyone,” Depanfills says. “He said, ‘Well, get on there!’”

Depanfills was shocked at how simple “getting on there” turned out to be: all she had to do was sign up and swab (拭抹) her cheek. She just didn’t imagine she’d get the chance so quickly. Not long after being swabbed, Depanfills got a call about a possible recipient (接受者): a 6-month-old boy born without an immune system — meaning one cold could become life-threatening. Within six months, she was checked in to the hospital as his no-named transplant donor.

After the operation, she was told the recovery time was 20 days and could include pain and tiredness, but she had only some soreness. “Honestly, the next day, I went out shopping,” she says. The boy who received her bone marrow cells is now recovering well and able to run around the playground like other kids.

Depanfills was so energized by the experience that she started volunteering at registry events, and last year she started her own at Norwalk Hospital. “One couple drove 45 minutes just to get swabbed,” she says. In a single day, about 50 hoping to be donors signed up. Every year there are 20,000 people who might benefit from a bone marrow transplant. “When you say such things, people get nervous,” Depanfills says. “But I want everyone to know how easy giving this gift can be.”

1The function of “Be the match” is to_____.

A.link donors with recipients.B.perform transplant operations

C.improve patients’ immune systemD.raise money for Norwalk Hospital

2Which of the following statements about Depanfills is true?

A.She cured a middle-aged man.

B.She was saved by “Be the match”.

C.Her signing up for the donation was hard.

D.Her name was unknown to the recipient.

3According to the text, we can know that_____.

A.the usual recovery time is less than 20 days

B.many people are inspired by Depanfills’ action

C.the recipient is normally free of pain and tiredness

D.there are 20,000 people every year waiting for donations

4What can be a suitable title for the text?

A.A Non-profit ProjectB.A Cure for a Blood Disease

C.A Marrow Transplant OperationD.A Caring and Can-do Donor

【题目】 Large gatherings such as weddings and conferences can be socially overwhelming. Pressure to learn people's names only adds to the stress. A new facial-recognition app could come to the rescue, but privacy experts recommend proceeding with caution.

The app, called Social Recall, connects names with faces via smartphone cameras and facial recognition, potentially avoiding the need for formal introductions. “It breaks down these social barriers we all have when meeting somebody," says Barry Sandrew, whose start-up, also called Social Recall, created the app and tested it at an event attended by about 1,000 people.

After receiving an invitation to download Social Recall from an event organizer, the user is asked to take two selfies and sign in via social media. At the event, the app is active within a previously defined geographical area. When a user points his or her phone camera at an attendee's face, the app identifies the individual, displays the person’s name, and links to his or her social media profile. To protect privacy, it recognizes only those who have agreed to participate. And the app’s creators say it automatically deletes users’ data after an event.

Ann Cavoukian, a privacy expert who runs the Privacy by Design Center of Excellence praises the app’s creators for these protective measures. She cautions, however, that when people choose to share their personal information with the app, they should know that “there may be unintended consequences down the road with that information being used in another context that might come back to bite you”.

The start-up has also developed a version of the app for individuals who suffer from prosopagnosia, or “face blindness”, a condition that prevents people from recognizing individuals they have met. To use this app, a person first acquires an image of someone's face, from either the smartphone’s camera or a photograph, and then tags it with a name. When the camera spots that same face in real life, the previously entered information is displayed. The collected data are stored only on a user's phone, according to the team behind the app.

1Social Recall is used to_________.

A.identify peopleB.take photosC.organize eventsD.make friends

2Paragraph 3 is mainly about_________.

A.what people can do with the appB.how the app was created

C.what makes the app popularD.how the app works

3Social Recall helps people with prosopagnosia by ________.

A.giving names to the photos kept in their smartphone

B.showing the person's information when it spots a stored face

C.providing the information of a person when they first meet

D.collecting information previously entered in the phone

4What can we learn about Social Recall from the passage?

A.It can cure people’s “face blindness”.

B.It has caused unintended consequences.

C.It may put people's privacy at risk.

D.It is praised by users for its protective measures.

【题目】 Good education is expensive. Some countries today have proven that belief to be wrong, though. If you're dreaming of having your university education in a country outside your motherland, do not be afraid to apply to study in the below-listed countries as everything about your education can be achieved with little or nothing.

Germany

Kenznow.com

All the public universities in Germany do not ask for any education fees except administration fees which are quite affordable, no matter what your status. The English language is common in Germany and most of these universities teach with English so it will be easier to get along as an international student.

Norway

Wikipedia.org

Want to achieve your post-graduate degrees? Even if you aim to achieve an undergraduate, Norway is a good option because you will not have to send a penny to anyone. This is possible because of the government's financing of the education from tax income. The only problem is that most of the top universities in the country teach with their mother tongue and as a foreigner, you have to familiarize with the language enough to pass a required test.

Turkey

Turkeydiscoverthepotential.com

Public universities, called 'Devlet Universiteleri' in Turkish, are totally free of tuition costs. After payment of an affordable basic fee, the rest is free absolutely. Some of these institutions teach in English while some in French and German.

Italy

Gooverseas.com

Italy offers almost free education to international students. When you have to pay as little as&850 per year for quality education, then it is quite cheap. Besides, Italy has so much cultural heritage and history that students can learn about.

1Which website can you visit if you tend to apply for a country free of charge?

A.Kenznow.comB.Wikipedia.orgC.Gooverseas.comD.Turkeydiscoverthepotential.com

2Which country could be suitable for a Chinese student skilled in French?

A.Germany.B.Norway.C.Turkey.D.Italy.

3Whom is the passage intended for?

A.International students on tight budget.B.Teachers encouraged to study abroad.

C.Parents with adequate education funds.D.Native students with good performances.

违法和不良信息举报电话:027-86699610 举报邮箱:58377363@163.com

精英家教网