Tired of living in the same location but don’t want to leave the house you love? That wouldn’t be a problem if architect Felipe Campolina had his way.
The Brazilian architect has designed a concept for a home tower consisting of portable, stackable (可叠起堆放的) apartment units, which he says opens up new possibilities for ways of living in the city.
His design would allow owners to take their home with them when they travel — whether for a weekend away or for longer periods, he said.
The mobile home tower project is at the concept stage, and it could be years before it is built, if ever at all.
But if it is realized, it would offer an eco-friendly solution to living in urban areas, Campolina said.
“We have enough technology to build with fewer materials and minimize (使减至最小) the impact on nature,” he said.
His vision would call for units with a green roof and walls and a system for recycling water.
The tower, whose first floor would be built nine meters above ground, would also make it possible to save space in thickly populated areas.
“It is designed to facilitate (使便利) its application in dense urban centers, where space is very limited,” he said.
Still just a concept, Campolina — who designed the building for architecture journal eVolo’s Skyscraper Competition — said with enough public interest, it just might become a reality one day.
【小题1】We can learn from the first four paragraphs that the tower _____.

What would you think if someone suggested knocking down St Paul’s Cathedral to widen the road? Or pulling down Big Ben to make way for a car park? It would be ridiculous, right? But when it comes to devastation (毁灭) of the natural world, we aren’t so easily shocked. But we should be…or we’ll be in a lot of trouble.

Nature is shrinking by the day. Ancient forests are destroyed. Wetlands are becoming dry. Woodland is disappearing, and all in the name of progress. This is bad in itself, but it’s devastating for biodiversity.

Biodiversity refers to the variety of plants, animals and other living things that are all interconnected. The ecological services provided by biodiversity are vital to everyday life. The air we breathe is a product of photosynthesis (光合作用) by green plants. Insects, worms and bacteria break down waste and make soils rich. And tiny organisms clean the water in rivers and sea. In fact, all life on the earth exists thanks to the benefits of biodiversity. More than 90 percent of the calories consumed by people worldwide are produced from 80 plant species. And 30 percent of medicines are developed from plants and animals. Maintaining a wide diversity of species in each ecosystem is necessary to preserve all living things.

The loss of biodiversity could be devastating. “It is wrong to think that biodiversity can be reduced indefinitely without threatening humans,” said Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson, known as the “father of biodiversity”. He warned, “We are about to reach a critical point beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible (不可挽回的).”

But what can we do? The present problem is that the concept of biodiversity is so vague (含糊的). People might care about giant pandas, but it is much harder to excite them about the fate of tiny sea creatures which are being boiled to death in the cooling systems of power stations along coastlines. The Guardian newspaper is trying to help. It has launched the Biodiversity 100 campaign to try to convince governments around the world to take action to deal with the widespread concerns about biodiversity. This includes persuading the UK government to create a series of marine reserves to reserve the decrease in the sea-life caused by industrial fishing, stopping fishing sharks by the Japanese fishermen and banning the killing of dingoes (wild dogs) in Australia, among many other things.

There is a lot to do. And we’d better act quickly if we don’t want to end up with a planet that can’t sustain life!

1.The writer thinks it ________ to pull down Big Ben to make way for a car park.

A．unreasonable      B．necessary         C．difficult           D．reasonable

2.The underlined sentence “Nature is shrinking by the day.” means that ________.

A．nature is badly polluted by humans

B．species are becoming fewer and fewer day by day

C．rainforests are being cut down every day

D．nature is full of mysteries

3.Edward O. Wilson thinks that ________.

A．it doesn’t matter to reduce biodiversity

B．people have done enough to preserve biodiversity

C．the situation of biodiversity is very serious

D．biodiversity loss has become irreversible

4.When it comes to biodiversity, the present problem is that ________.

A．people might not clearly know what is biodiversity and what should be protected

B．people are not aware that giant pandas are endangered

C．people don’t realize that biodiversity is vital to everyday life

D．people hunt sea creatures for food

5.What does the underlined word “It” in paragraph 5 refer to?

A．The UK government.                     B．The concept of biodiversity.

C．The action to deal with the problem.         D．The Guardian newspaper.

In an age dominated （控制的） by new media and the Internet, there are so many alternative ways of learning．Gone are the days when, if we couldn't make it into a classroom, the only real option was to pick up a book, or when audio materials consisted of bad quality cassettes or sporadic（时有时无的） radio and TV programmes．With the appearance of broadband access to the web, we have a whole new learning domain （统领） at our fingertips．Sophisticated learning materials in the form of text or high-quality audio are now available at the touch of a button, and tests and assignments can be submitted （进行） and marked online．Questions and learning, studying away from the classroom has never seemed easier．Yet many teachers would argue that face-to-face contact between teachers and students is an essential part of the language learning experience．Enter the concept of blended （融合的） learning, an approach to education which seeks to combine the best of new technology and actual human contact．
Advocates of blended learning argue that an approach to study which combines the benefits of new technology with the best aspects of face-to-face （often abbreviated to F2F） teaching, will achieve better results．For example, there are some aspects of study, like practical sessions, dealing with more subjective questions, or meeting the needs of an individual student, which require face-to-face human interaction, whereas the more mechanical aspects of learning, such as answers to clear-cut questions, can be managed simply and effectively in a remote environment using new technology．
Blended learning approaches have proven especially appropriate in language learning．For example, in an ELT （English Language Teaching ） environment, a simple scenario （剧情概要） might be a classroom session where a teacher asks a group of students to use a wiki to create a text． Students then go away and compose and edit the text remotely．During the next F2F session, the teacher express his opinion about their work．
【小题1】What is the main idea of this passage?

The concept of solar power satellites, or SPS, first put forward in the 1960s, is still not widely known by the general public. For example, at many public exhibitions about energy, SPS is not even mentioned. This is mainly because very little money has been spent on SPS research
There are people who claim that SPS is unrealistic － because launch costs are much too high today; or because it is too far away. So why do we believe that it is important to continue to do researches on SPS? The reason is very simple.
Humans are going to need huge amounts of electric power in coming decades. Within 50 years the world population is expected to double, while economic growth will continue around the world, especially in the poorer countries. But existing energy sources already face serious problems. They are limited; they are polluted; they are dangerous. So 50 or 100 years from now, where is our power going to come from? Nobody knows. And so we believe that new large-scale possibilities should be studied further.
We must remember that humans have some choices concerning our future. To some extent we can choose the direction in which our civilization develops. And choices that are made in the coming decades － such as the energy sources that we will or will not use, will have major, long-term meaning for human life on earth. We believe that if research continues to show that SPS is environmentally and economically attractive, SPS will open the door to a much more attractive future for human civilization than any ground-based energy source, and one that the public will support and that young people will find challenging and exciting. Furthermore energy from SPS can be readily used in developing countries, as the SPS 2000 project will show, thus aiding economic development worldwide. In addition, by creating large commercial fund for space engineering, SPS will open the frontier of space to economic development, thus creating a limitless new field for the growth of the world economy.
【小题1】Which of the following may be the best title for the passage?

B

He is a lesson to every boy who ever picked up a basketball and dreamed that it would change his life.

The lights were never brighter and the crowds were never bigger for a homegrown sports hero than they were a quarter-century ago for Ray Hall. But his athletic achievements, as impressive as they are, are to my mind not what is most admirable about the man.

Known as “Sugar Ray” in his teens, Hall was rated among the country’s top 25 high school basketball players. An inner-city kid from a solid family, Hall took on the challenge of lifting Canisius College — still recovering from its failure — back to respectability, rejecting more favorable offers. His status of a savior (救世主) brought more pressure than any 18-year-old should have to handle. However, I watched him mature into the player who led Canisius back to daylight.

After college Hall played professionally in Italy and Greece for over 10 years until a car accident at 32 ended his basketball career. The news that he would never play again shocked Hall but unlike so many others he was ready for life after basketball. When I met Hall — still fit at 46 — for lunch Monday, he wore a cut-sharp gray suit, designer tie and blazing white shirt that screamed Success. “That was always the question — when the cheers end, where do you go? Who do you turn to?” he said. “It starts and ends with that person in the mirror.”

Hall got the concept of academics-first from his parents. He graduated from Canisius a semester early. “No matter how good of an athlete you are, you are just one injury away from losing it all,” he said. “But if you take care of things academically, you are prepared until you leave this earth.”

For the past 14 years, he has been in a computer sales job at Ingram Micro. He married his college sweetheart. They have three kids and a nice house in the suburbs. He figured out early what others learn too late: Athletics is part of a journey, not the destination.

Congratulations, Ray, you made it. In more ways than one.          

1.Ray was regarded as a savior because ________.

A．he liked to take on challenges

B．he helped his team to regain its glory

C．he was faithful to his hometown city

D．he fought hard against failure at a young age

2.According to the writer, which of the following best describes Ray’s success?

A．Unlike other athletes, he was academically superior.

B．He defeated his injury and returned to the playground.

C．He enjoys a successful job and a happy family.

D．He has gained impressive athletic achievements.

3.What’s the right order of the events related to Ray?

a. He was rated among the best high school basketball players.

b. He was in a car accident.

c. He graduated from Canisius College.

d. He started his computer sales job.

e. He gave up his athletic career.

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

4.We can learn from the passage that ________.

A．Ray was from an academic family

B．Ray was very mature in his teens

C．Ray was once desperate facing the cruel reality

D．athletics was not Ray’s final goal in life

5.What was the writer’s intention in writing this passage?

A．To describe the difficulties of being a professional athlete.

B．To explain the importance of choosing the right college.

C．To emphasize the need for a good education.

D．To warn against playing professional basketball.