B

From E-mail to online shopping, you may think you’ve heard everything there to know about the electronic frontier （新领域）．But with hundreds of thousands of Web pages being added weekly, there are plenty of surprises out there．Here are some of the most intriguing （有迷惑力的）．

……

Put your kid on a greeting card．Here is how: simply take some pictures with a regular camera, and then ask the photo service to develop them digitally （数字化）．For a small fee, you’ll receive your photos on a desk．Put that into your computer and, with a few clicks of the mouse, you can view your photos on the screen．With a few more keystrokes, you can attach the photos to email and send them to friends and relatives worldwide．

　　Sign on to one or several greeting card’s Websites （http://www．cardcentral．net/ is an index of more than 1200 electronic card sites） and create an electronic birthday or holiday card．Using your digital photos, you can paste your grandchildren onto the cover．

　　If you don’t want to use your own photos, go to cards．amzon．com to browse （浏览） hundreds of images in over 30 categories…all of which you can attach to an electronic greeting card for free．For a nominal fee（很低的费用）you can choose from a library of 75,000 images at http://www．phontodisc．com/．

　　Call Australia for free．To have a telephone conversation over the Internet, the person you want to talk to no longer needs a computer．Now all you need to talk to someone in Sydney is one computer with speakers, a microphone, a sound card and some software （available at http://www．vocaltec．com/ or Mricrosoft．com）．Typically, you’ll pay a monthly fee （usually under $20） to a service provider, but after that, the calls themselves are local．Sound quality is the same as that of a cell phone．

　　Even if you don’t have a computer, you can still use the Web to reduce your long distance phone costs．Some companies offer a service that lets you use an ordinary phone to call another ordinary phone, but charge only a few cents per minute for US calls, because they send them through the Internet．

　　Today 48 percent of American homes have computers…a figure that is expected to climb to 60 percent by 2003．And by the end of the next decade, Americans will likely be spending more time shopping, banking, investing and learning on the Internet than in the real world．If you can’t do or find something on the Net today, you probably can tomorrow．

60．Over the Internet, you ________．

       A．can hear everything there

       B．will meet with plenty of surprises which come out every week．

       C．will hear the things about the electronic frontier

       D．can find some things are very interesting

61．From the passage we can infer that _________．

       A．fewer people will use the Internet in the following ten years

       B．more people will study in the regular school by the end of the next decade

       C．fewer people will go to the regular school in the following ten years

       D．more money will be needed for a long-distance call by the end of the next decade

62．If you want to attach to photo to your e-mail, you have to ________ it．

       A．digitalize　　  B．take　　　　   C．picture　　　　      D．send

63．Which of the following is NOT true?

       A．A telephone conversation over the Internet can be carried out without computers．

       B．Over the Internet, the receiver of the phone conversation doesn’t need a computer．

       C．The phone conversations over the Internet are much cheaper．

       D．The long-distance calls are local themselves．

A Battery’s Nightmare
Portable electronics that can be carried about easily are only as good as their batteries (电池) 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 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. Its tiny parts are etched (蚀刻) onto silicon wafers (硅片) in the same manner that computer parts are etched 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. Tiny engine parts don’t always behave like the bigger parts of the first engine. Something between the parts can slow down the works, according to Columbia University Professor LucFrechette, 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 operate. 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 likely until at least the end of the next ten years.
【小题1】According to the passage, the title suggests that _______ .

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. 
【小题1】.
. According to the passage, the title suggests that ________.

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.