A funny thing happened on the way to the communications revolutions: we stopped talking to one another.
I was walking in the park with a friend recently，and his cell phone rang, interrupting our conversation. There we were, walking and talking on a beautiful sunny day and…I became invisible, absent from the conversation.   
The telephone used to connect you to the absent. Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent. Why is it that the more connected we get, the more disconnected I feel? Every advance in communications technology is a tragedy to the closeness of human interaction. With email and instant messaging over the Internet, we can now communicate without seeing or talking to one another, With voice mail, you can conduct entire conversations without ever reaching anyone. If my mom has a question, I just leave the answer on her machine.
As almost every contact we can imagine between human beings gets automated, the alienation index goes up. You can't even call a person to get the phone number of another person my more. Directory assistance is almost always fully automated.
I am not against modern technology. I own a cell phone, an ATM card a voice mail system, and an email account. Giving them up isn't wise…they're a great help to use. It's some of their possible consequences that make me feel uneasy.  
More and more .I find myself hiding behind e-mail to do a job meant for conversation. Or being relieved that voice mail picked up because I didn't really have time to talk, The industry devoted to helping me keep in touch is making me lonelier…or at least facilitating my antisocial instincts．
So I've put myself on technology restriction: no instant messaging. with people who live near me，no cell phoning in the presence of friends, no letting the voice mail pick up when I'm at home.
【小题1】Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?   

You never see him, but they're with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to endure almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They're known as the black box.

　When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean on June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine (潜水艇) detected the box's homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.

　In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the box was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.

　Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots' conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments. Placed in an insulated (隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can stand massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉. When submerged, they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they're still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane's black boxes were never recovered.

1.What does the author say about the black box?

A．It is an indispensable device on an airplane.　

B．The idea for its design comes from a comic book.

C．Its ability to avoid disasters is incredible.

D．It ensures the normal functioning of an airplane.

2.What does the underlined word in the 3rd paragraph mean?　

A．witness           B．experience        C．resist　           D．ensure

3.Why was the black box redesigned in 1965?

A．New materials became available by that time.

B．Too much space was needed for its installation.

C．The early models didn't provide the needed data.

D．The early models often got damaged in the crash.

4.What do we know about the black boxes from Air France Flight 447?

A．There is an urgent need for them to be reconstructed.

B．There is still a good chance of their being recovered.　

C．They have stopped sending homing signals.

D．They were destroyed somewhere near Brazil.

①Researches show what we already suspected: Three out of four babies who died of SIDS(婴儿猝死) involved co-sleeping. We’ll say it again. The safest course is not to sleep with babies.

②We know the argument: Bad parenting, not co-sleeping, is to blame for the dozens of babies’ deaths. Some parents stick to co-sleeping because it helps them bond with their newborns. They say those who give co-sleeping a bad name either had been drinking, used drugs or were too tired to notice that they rolled over on their children.

③But, most of the cases did not involve drugs or alcohol. There’s a “but” here, however. Submitting to a test for drugs or alcohol in these cases is voluntary, so it’s difficult to know with certainty.

④Organizations like the Black Health Coalition and others have explained the safe way to co-sleep. While we understand those arguments, we also know that mistakes can happen and that it only takes one time for something to go terribly wrong. The risk outweighs the benefit.

⑤In all likelihood, parents will continue to co-sleep, and some will do so without ever having an incident, but babies are too vulnerable(易受伤的) for parents to take such chances. Therefore, the best place for babies to sleep is in their own beds, on their backs, with no pillows, blankets or toys. No parent wants a tragedy to occur. The best way to make sure the tragedy doesn’t happen is to allow babies to sleep alone in their own cribs.                                         

According to the author, most of the SIDS cases happened because of ________.

A. drugs    B. co-sleeping    C. drinking     D. bad parenting

Some parents think sleeping with their babies can ________.

A. keep the babies healthy

B. give co-sleeping a good name

C. prevent themselves from drinking

D. develop a good relation with their babies

The author holds the opinion that ________.

A. parents can sleep with babies, but cautiously

B. co-sleep helps to bring babies closer to parents

C. parents can’t take chances to sleep with their babies

D. accidents only happen to those careless parents

Which of the following best describes the structure of the text?

A.  ①        B.  ①②      C.  ①         D.  ①

↙↘                ↓         ↙↓↘        ↙↓↓↘

②③  ④           ③④    ②③④       ②③④⑤

↘ ↙           ↓        ↘↓↙

⑤              ⑤          ⑤

Researches show what we already suspected: Three out of four babies who died of SIDS(婴儿猝死) involved co-sleeping. We’ll say it again. The safest course is not to sleep with babies.

We know the argument: Bad parenting, not co-sleeping, is to blame for the dozens of babies’ deaths. Some parents stick to co-sleeping because it helps them bond with their newborns. They say those who give co-sleeping a bad name either had been drinking, used drugs or were too tired to notice that they rolled over on their children.

But, most of the cases did not involve drugs or alcohol. There’s a “but” here, however. Submitting to a test for drugs or alcohol in these cases is voluntary, so it’s difficult to know with certainty.

Organizations like the Black Health Coalition and others have explained the safe way to co-sleep. While we understand those arguments, we also know that mistakes can happen and that it only takes one time for something to go terribly wrong. The risk outweighs the benefit.

In all likelihood, parents will continue to co-sleep, and some will do so without ever having an incident, but babies are too vulnerable(易受伤的) for parents to take such chances. Therefore, the best place for babies to sleep is in their own beds, on their backs, with no pillows, blankets or toys. No parent wants a tragedy(悲剧) to occur. The best way to make sure the tragedy doesn’t happen is to allow babies to sleep alone in their own cribs(摇篮).                                         

According to the author, most of the SIDS cases happened because of ________.

A. drugs

B. co-sleeping

C. drinking

D. bad parenting

Some parents think sleeping with their babies can ________.

A. keep the babies healthy

B. give co-sleeping a good name

C. prevent themselves from drinking

D. develop a good relation with their babies

The author holds the opinion that ________.

A. parents can sleep with babies, but cautiously

B. co-sleep helps to bring babies closer to parents

C. parents can’t take chances to sleep with their babies

D. accidents only happen to those careless parents

Which of the following best describes the structure of the text?

A.   ①                       B.  ①②                       C.   ①                    D.   ①

↙↘                                   ↓                    ↙↓↘              ↙↓↓↘

②③ ④                    ③④                   ②③④            ②③④⑤

↘ ↙                                  ↓                   ↘↓↙

⑤                              ⑤                    ⑤

You never see him, but they're with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you're traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to withstand almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They're known as the black box.

  When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine (潜水艇) detected the device's homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.

  In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the device was completely redesigned and moved to the back of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.

  Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots' conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft's final moments. Placed in an insulated (隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can resist massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉. When submerged, they're also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they're still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane's black boxes were never recovered.

What does the author say about the black box?

A. It ensures the normal functioning of an airplane.

B. The idea for its design comes from a comic book.

C. Its ability to resist disasters is incredible.

D. It is an indispensable device on an airplane.

What information could be found from the black box on the Yemeni airliner?

A. Data for analyzing the cause of the crash.

B. The total number of passengers on board.

C. The scene of the crash and extent of the damage.

D. Homing signals sent by the pilot before the crash.

Why was the black box redesigned in 1965?

A. New materials became available by that time.

B. Too much space was needed for its installation.

C. The early models often got damaged in the crash.

D. The early models didn't provide the needed data.

Why did the Federal Aviation Authority require the black boxes be painted orange or yellow?

A. To distinguish them from the colour of the plane.

B. To caution people to handle them with care.

C. To make them easily identifiable.

D. To conform to international standards.

What do we know about the black boxes from Air France Flight 447?

A. There is still a good chance of their being recovered.

B. There is an urgent need for them to be reconstructed.

C. They have stopped sending homing signals.

D. They were destroyed somewhere near Brazil.