A Battery’s Worst Nightmare(噩梦)

     Portable electronics that can be carried about easily are only as good as their batteries and, let’s face it, batteries aren’t very good, especially when compared with, say, petrol, which packs 100 times a battery’s energy into an equal space. That’s why a large group of mechanical engineers (centered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but with partners at other universities and companies) are hard at work in an effort to replace batteries with a tiny engine that runs on fuel. Imagine a battery-free life!When the fuel runs out in your laptop or mobile phone, you just fill up and go.

    The engine, about the size of a ten-cent coin, starts with a combustion chamber (燃烧室) that burns hydrogen (氢). Its tiny parts are etched onto silicon wafers (硅片) in the same manner that computer parts are imprinted onto integrated circuits (集成电路). The first engine is made up of five wafers. And since these wafers could be produced in much the same way as computer chips, they could probably be produced quite cheaply.

     But the devil in all this nice detail is efficiency(效率). Tiny engine parts don’t always behave like their scaled-up parts of the first engine. Something between the parts can slow down the work, according to Columbia University professor Luc Frechette, one of the engine’s designers. Extreme heat from the combustion chamber is also a problem, often leaking to other parts of the engine.

    The scientists’ goal is to create an engine that will operate 10 times better than batteries do. Frechette says that a complete system, with all parts in place and working, will be set up in the next couple of years, but commercial models aren’t available until at least the end of the next ten years. 

1..

. According to the passage, the title suggests that ________.

    A. batteries should be greatly improved           B. petrol will be used instead of batteries

    C. the time of batteries will be gone forever    D. pollution caused by batteries must be prevented

2..

 What’s the meaning of the underlined word “devil” (In Paragraph 3)?

     A. Problem.　           B. Advantage.　        C. Invention.　                 D. Technique.

3..

 What can we infer from the passage?

A. The new invention doesn’t need any fuel. 

B. The new engine has been produced in quantity.

    C. The new invention is much cheaper than the battery.

    D. The new engine needs to be improved before it’s on sale.

4..

. What is the main purpose of this passage?

    A. To introduce a new invention to readers.        B. To persuade readers not to use batteries.

    C. To show us how the new invention works. 　　D. To declare when the engine will be on sale.

Microwaves may be great at warming up food, but what about warming people?
Using microwaves to directly heat owners of a room would save much of the energy wasted by heating walls and furniture. And despite popular ideas about microwaves, this technique would be safe, according to Charles R. Burlier of the Microwave Research Center in Marlborough, New Hampshire. Low-power microwaves only penetrate (贯穿) the skin (low-power microwave penetration in a ham is about 0.2 inches, for example) and with no negative effects.
To test this idea, Buffler subjected himself to microwaves in a special room using a standard 500-watt, 2459 MHz magnetron (磁控管). He found that a person will start to feel warmth at about 20 milliwatts per square centimeter (mw. / sq. cm. ) ; a satisfactory feeling of warmth occurs between 35 and 50mw. / sq. cm. By comparison, a person standing in noonday summer sun feels the amount of 85 mw. / sq. cm. And a frozen meat pie in your microwave oven receives about 1000 mw. / sq. cm.
In houses of the future, each room could be provided with its own magnetron, says Buffler. When you stepped into the living room, for example, a motion detector (运动感应器)would turn on the magnetron, filling the room with low-power microwaves. In the same way that a microwave oven heats up a hamburger, but not the plate it’s on, you would feel warmth from the microwaves without changing the temperature of your coffee table. (You could, however, make your favorite easy chair even more comfortable by treating it with a radiation-absorbing chemical.)
While it might be some time before homeowners are comfortable enough with the idea to set up whole-body microwave heaters in houses, Buffler says microwaves may attract livestock(家畜) farmers. Lambs that are born outdoors in winter, for example, are frequently lost to cold. Microwaves could warm the lambs safely and quickly.
【小题1】Which of the following can tell the main idea of the passage?

It's on the festival occasions________ the family get together________ he misses his late father.

A．where; that        B．which; when       C．when; that         D．that; when

短文改错(共10小题;每小题1分，满10分)

　　此题要求改正所给短文中的错误。对标有题号的每一行作出判断：如无错误，在该行右边横线上画一个勾(√)如有错误(每行只有一个错误)，则按下列情况改正：

　　此行多一个词：把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉，在该行右边横线上写出该词，并也用斜线划掉。

　　此行缺一个词：在缺词处加一个漏字符合(^)，在该行右边横线上写出该加的词。

　　此行错一个词：在错的词下划—横线，在该行右边横线上写出改正后的词。

　　注意：1)原行没有错的不要改。2)不按规范格式完成的不得分。

Dear Kang Li,

I haven't heard you for a long time. How           1._____________

are you? I had just finished the exams. Now I'm         2._____________

glad I have time to write for you. Our teacher         3._____________

tells us that China is a big country has the           4._____________

most population in the world. It's on the other        5._____________

side of the world. Now the sun is shining bright         6._____________

here and perhaps you're sleeping in the dark           7._____________

night. I wish to know anything more about the          8._____________

Chinese way of living. I wonder at if you can          9._____________

tell me about it in your next letter. Please write soon.     10.____________

下面短文中有8处语言错误。请在有错误的地方增加、删除或修改某个单词。

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写上该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写上修改后的词。

注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；  

2.只允许修改8处，多者（从第9处起）不计分。

Dear Kang Li,

I haven’t heard you for a long time. How are you? I have just finish the exams. Now I’m glad that I have time to write to you. Our teacher tells us that China is a big country that have the largest population in the world. It’s on the other sides of the world. Now the sun is shining bright here, and perhaps you’re sleeping in the dark night. I want to know anything more about the Chinese way of living. I wonder that if you can tell me about it in your letter. Please write soon.

Yours,

John