When I asked my daughter which item she would keep; the phone, the car, the cooker, the computer, the TV, or her boyfriend, she said “the phone”．Personally, I could do without the phone entirely, which makes me unusual, because the telephone is changing our lives more than any other piece of technology．

Point 1 The telephone creates the need to communicate, in the same way that more roads create more traffic．My daughter comes home from school at 4:00 pm and then spends an hour on the phone talking to the very people she has been at school with all day．If the phone did not exist, would she have anything to talk about?

Point 2 The mobile phone means that we are never alone．“The mobile saved my life,” says Crystal Johnstone．She had an accident in her Volvo on the A45 between Otley and Skipton．Trapped inside, she managed to make the call that brought the ambulance（救护车）to her rescue．

Point 3 The mobile removes our secret．It allows marketing manager of Haba Deutsch, Carl Nicolaisen, to ring his sales staff all round the world at any time of day to ask where they are, where they are going, and how their last meeting went．

Point 4 The telephone separates us．Antonella Bramante in Rome says, “We worked in separate offices but I could see him through the window．It was easy to get his number．We were so near—but we didn’t meet for the first two weeks!”

Point 5 The telephone allows us to reach out beyond our own lives．Today we can talk to several complete strangers simultaneously（同时地）on chat lines（at least my daughter does．I wouldn’t know what to talk about）．We can talk across the world．We can even talk to astronauts（if you know any）while they’re space-walking．And, with the phone line hooked up to the computer, we can access the Internet, the biggest library on Earth．

How do you understand ‘Point 1 —The telephone creates the need to communicate,…’？

       A．People don’t communicate without telephone．

       B．People communicate because of the creating of the telephone．

       C．People communicate more since telephone has been created．

       D．People communicate more because of more traffic．

Which points do you think support the idea that phones improve people’s life?

       a．Point 1．         b．Point2．          c．Point3．   d．Point 4．  e．Point 5．

       A．c, d B．a, e   C．a, c   D．b, e

It is possible to talk to several complete strangers simultaneously through        ．

       A．the TV screen      

       B．a fax machine

       C．the phone line hooked up to the computer       

       D．a microphone

The best heading for the passage is ．

       A．Phone Power              B．Kinds of Phone

       C．How to Use Phones      D．Advantage of Phones

    Grown－ups know that people and objects are solid. At the movies, we know that if we reach out to touch Tom Cruise, all we will feel is air. But does a baby have this understanding?

    To see whether babies know objects are solid, T. Bower designed a method for projecting an optical illusion（视觉影像）of a hanging ball. His plan was to first give babies a real ball, one they could reach out and touch , and then to show them the illusion. If they knew that objects are solid and they reached out for the illusion and found empty air, they could be expected to show surprise in their faces and movements. All the 16-to 24- week -old babies tested were surprised when they reached for the illusion and found that the ball was not there.

    Grown－ups also have a sense of object permanence. We know that if we put a box in a room and lock the door, the box will still be there when we come back. But does a baby realize that a ball that rolls under a chair does not disappear and go to never-never land?

    Experiments done by Bower suggest that babies develop a sense of object permanence when they are about 18 weeks old. In his experiments, Bower used a toy train that went behind a screen. When 16－week－old and 22-week-old babies watched the toy train disappear behind the left side of the screen, they looked to the right, expecting it to reappear. If the experimenter took the train off the table and lifted the screen, all the babies seemed surprised not to see the train. This seems to show that all the babies had a sense of object permanence. But the second part of the experiment showed that this was not really the case. The researcher substituted（替换）a ball for the train when it went behind the screen. The 22-week-old babies seemed surprised and looked back to the left side for the train. But the 16-week -old babies did not seem to notice the switch（更换）. Thus, the 16-week-old babies seemed to have a sense of“something permanence, ”while the 22－week－old babies had a sense of object permanence related to a particular object.

68. The passage is mainly about _____.

     A. babies’ sense of sight                         B. effects of experiments on babies

      C. babies’ understanding of objects         D. different tests on babies’ feelings

69. In Paragraph 3, “object permanence”means that when out of sight, an object ________.

      A. still exists               B. keeps its shape    C. still stays solid        D. is beyond reach

70. What did Bower use in his experiments?

      A. A chair.               B. A screen.         C. A film.                D. A box.

71. Which of the following statements is true?

      A. The babies didn’t have a sense of direction.

      B. The older babies preferred toy trains to balls.

      C. The younger babies liked looking for missing objects.

      D. The babies couldn’t tell a ball from its optical illusion.

“If you want to see a thing well, reach out and touch it!”

That may seem a strange thing to say. But touching things can help you to see them better. Your eyes can tell you that a glass ball is round. But by holding it in your hands, you can feel how smooth and cool the ball is. You can tell how heavy the glass it. When you feel all these about the ball, you really see it.

With your skin, you can feel better. For example, your fingers can tell the difference between two coins in your pockets. You can feel a little drop of water on the back of your hand, too. You can even feel sounds against your skin. Have you wanted to know why some people like very loud music? They must like to feel the sounds of music.

All children soon learn what “Don’t touch!” means. They hear it often. Yet most of us keep on touching things as we grow up. In shops, we touch things we might buy: food, clothes. To see something well, we have to touch it.

The bottom of our feet can feel things, too. You know this when you walk on warm sand, cool grass or a hard floor. All feel different under your feet.

There are ways of learning to see well by feeling. One way is to close your eyes and try to feel everything that is touching your skin. Feel the shoes on your feet, the clothes on your body, the air on your skin. At first, it is not easy to feel these things. You are too used to them.

Most museums are just for looking. But today some museums have things for visitors to touch. Their signs say, “Do touch!” there you can feel everything on show.

If you want to see better, reach out and touch. Then you will really see.

By touching things ___________.

Astronomy (天文学) is the oldest science known to man. Thousands of years ago man looked at the stars and wondered about heavens (天堂). But the six planets that he could see with his eyes alone limited man.

The Greeks studied astronomy over 2,000 years ago. They could see the size, color, and brightness of a star. They could see its place in the sky. They watched the stars move as the seasons changed. But the Greeks had no tools to help themselves study the heavens.

Each new tool added to the field of astronomy helped man reach out into space. Until there were telescopes (望远镜), man did not know much about the moon. He did not know that the planet called Saturn (土星) had rings around it. His sight was so limited that he could not see all the planets. In the early 1700s, people thought there were only six planets. Pluto (冥王星), the last of the nine planets to be discovered was seen until 1930.

Before the spectroscopes (分光镜), man didn’t know what kind of gas was in the sun or other stars, without radio telescopes (射电望远镜), we did not know that radio noise came from far in space.

Today, astronomy is a growing science. We have learned more in the past fifty years than in the whole history of astronomy.

Thousands of years ago, man watched ____ with his eyes.

       A. the moon   B. the stars     C. the universe       D. all the planets

When the Greeks watched the stars, they could ____ .

       A. know what the stars were made of     B. not see their places in the sky

       C. help themselves study the heavens      D. watch the stars move as the seasons changed

Until there were ____ , man knew very little about the moon.

       A. telescopes   B. spectroscopes     C. radio telescopes      D. spaceships

People didn’t know about Pluto until ____ .

       A. the 1700s   B. 2,000 years ago      C. 1930   D. thousands of years ago

____ people began to do research on astronomy.

       A. 50 years ago      B. 90 years ago      C. In the early 1700s    D. Over 2,000 years ago