4.注重依据事实推断，不可简单选择和文中某一事实完全相同的选项。

●歼灭难点训练

A

I’m afraid to grow old-we’re all afraid .In fact, the fear of growing old is so great that every aged person is an insult(伤害)and a threat to society .They remind us of our own death,that our body won’t always remain smooth and responsive(敏感的), but will some day betray(暴露) us by aging. The ideal way to age would be to grow slowly invisible, gradually disappearing, without causing worry or discomfort to the young. In some ways that does happen. Sitting in a small park across from a nursing home one day, I noticed that young mothers and their children gathered on the “wrong” side, chasing(追逐) a ball or just trying to cover all the available space, the old people would lean forward and smile. But before any communication could be established(开始), the mother would come over, making embarrassed(尴尬) apologies, and take her child back to the “young” side.

Now, it seemed to me that the children didn’t feel any particular fear and the old people didn’t seem to be threatened by the children. The division of space was drawn by the mothers. And the mothers never looked at the old people who lined the other side of the park. These well dressed young women had a way of sliding(忽视) their eyes over, around, through the old people; they never looked at them directly. The old people may as well have been invisible, they offended(冒犯) the aesthetic(审美的) eye of the mothers.

My early experiences were somewhat different; since I grew up in a small town, my childhood had more of a nineteenth century flavor(特点). I knew a lot of old people, and considered some of their friends.

3.站在作者立场思考，把握作者意图，切忌推己及人，凭空臆断。

2.仔细研读选项，把握其准确意思，从文章选取相关信息，与此对照，去伪存真。

2.When I opened my e-mail the other day,a pretty woman named Rachel appeared on my computer screen.She greeted me by name and started talking with great enthusiasm(热情).Every now and then she stopped to smile at me or blow a kiss.She was reading to me an e-mail from my brother,and a lot of it was about the trouble he had getting the phone company to give him a high-speed Internet connection.It was pretty cool.

Rachel was there thanks to a new technology called Facemail.Facemail lets you send e-mail that gets read to the recipient(收件人) by an attractive male or female form or by a clown(小丑).The software,which is free,can be downloaded at .

Facemail faces are lifelike,and they simulate(模拟) emotions based on emotions-for example-that you put　 in your text.Type in:-X,and Rachel blows a kiss.

Life FX,the company that develops the Facemail,is sure there are broad business uses.The reason e-business is not popular,the company says,is that buying over the Internet lacks the human touch.But what if you went to the Nike website and Michael Jordan greeted you by name,waited on you and personally closed the sale?And it is talking with Whirpool(惠尔普公司) about using the technology in a computer screen on a fridge.Then if Mom can’t be home when the kids get back from school,she can leave a note with voice and image telling them what there is to eat.

Facemail could get hot fast.Personally,I’m a fan.But Facemail should be used with care.The clown looks lively and funny at first.But if you select the clown,put a few rude words in an e-mail and add some angry emotions,you’ve got psychomail(疯人型电子邮件).

Question:We can infer from the passage that Facemail ________.

A.is likely to be used in other aspects(方面) of our daily life

destroy your e-mail if not properly used

be downloaded free of charge

D.will take the place of the e-mail system

命题意图：考查推理判断能力。属五星级题目。

错题分析：本题错选B、C项的学生较多。主要原因是文章研读不细和只重事实不重推理。

解题方法与技巧：(1)准确理解题干的关键词汇“infer”，意为“推断出”，故所选答案不可以是文章所列事实，以此可排除C项。(2)准确理解B项含义：如果使用不当，Facemail会毁坏你的e-mail。在文章中找出相对应的语句：But if you select the clown,put a few rude words in an e-mail and add some angry emotions,you’ve got psychomail(疯人型电子邮件)。此句含义并非Facemail can destroy your e-mail。(3)根据尾段前两句话Facemail could get hot(流行) fast.Personally,I’m a fan,以及文章前部分对Facemail用途的描述，可得出答案。

答案：A

●锦囊妙计

4.(★★★★★)The next time you try for a high-ranking post, you could let your possible boss listen to a recommending(推荐) phone call “made” by US President George W. Bush or British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Of course, neither of them could really do that for you-you would just“borrow” their voices.

At & T labs will start selling speech software that it says is so good at reproducing the sounds of a human voice that it can recreate voices and even bring the voices of long-dead famous people back to life.

The software, which turns printed text into speech, makes it possible for a company to use recordings of a person’s voice to say things that the person never actually said.

Possible customers for the software, which is priced in the thousands of dollars, include telephone call centres, companies that make software that reads digital(数字的) files aloud, and makers of automated voice devices(装置). The advances raise several problems. Who, for example, owns the rights to a famous person’s voice?(Some experts even believe that new contracts(合同) will be drawn that include voice-licensing clauses.)

And although scientists say the technology is not yet good enough to commit fraud(假冒), would the synthesized(合成的)voices at last be able to trick people into thinking that they were getting phone calls or digital audio recordings from people they know?

Even Mr Fruchterman, one of AT& T lab’s possible first customers, said he wondered what the new technology might bring. “Just like you can’t trust a photograph anymore.” he said, “you won’t be able to trust a voice either.”

Question 4:According to the passage, you can infer that ________.

A.the software will turn out to be an immediate success in the market

B.the government will forbid the sale of the software in the market

C.it’s hard to decide whether the software will enjoy popularity

D.the software will soon prove to be nothing but rubbish

●案例探究

3.(★★★★★)The use of the word imitation(模仿)reminds me that we ought to make some more comments on the risk of people imitating what they see on the screen in the way of crime(犯罪)or violence.First there was always a risk of children acting out scenes which could be dangerous.For example,I remember a woman who was head of a middle school telling me that she had happened to look out of her window when the children were in the playground and had seen them putting a small boy on a chair with a rope round his neck and the rope over the branch of a tree;fortunately she was in time to get there before the child was hung.I remember a film in particular in which the hero who was imprisoned had escaped by electrocuting(通电触死)his guard,the technique of doing this being shown in detail.This was the kind of scene which we could cut for these reasons.

In films for young people and adults we always tried to keep off the screen any details of criminal techniques,such as how to open a locked door with a piece of hard plastic or how to open a safe;if we were consulted(请教)before production,I used to advise that the details should not be shown.When I gave talks in prisons about film checking I had full support for this ,since fathers who were in prison for criminal offences did not want their children to get on crime.

Every time I gave a talk in a prison someone used to mention the French film Rififi made by Jules Dassin in 1954.This remarkable film showed in great detail a robbery of a jeweller’s shop,the robbery lasting about half an hour and being backed only by natural sound…one of the most brilliant film sequences(连续镜头)of all time.I remember our discussions at the time.We thought that the robbery was finished only with the use of advanced and obviously expensive equipment and that only the most experienced and skilled criminals could possible imitate it;we believed therefore that it was relatively safe.When talking in prisons some years later I learned that there had been several robberies in which the techniques had been copied,so perhaps we were wrong.

Question 3:It can be inferred from the passage that________.

A.it is hard for the children to tell the differences between real life and the imaginary

B.only the people in prison supported film checking

C.only children imitated what they had seen on the screen

D.the writer used to advise the details of crime should be shown

2.(★★★★★)The tower of Big Ben London’s most famous building,has always leaned (倾斜) slightly, but construction work on a new line for the London Underground seemed likely to give the tower a real lean. Engineers have had to prop up (支撑) its base to prevent it from damaging the rest of the Houses of Parliament.

To control the tower’s movement, engineers pumped grout (水泥浆) into the soil under the tower. The tower now leans an extra few centimetres, but the lean can only be seen by the most sharp-eyed observer.

Between 1995 and 1997, to lengthen the Jubilee line of the Underground, builders dug a 40-metre-deep hole just 31 metres north of the clock tower. And the new tube (underground) tunnels were even nearer to the tower. John Burland, who recently helped stop the increasing lean in the Leaning Tower of Pisa and was an adviser to the Jubilee line project, believed the work would affect the tower. In his opinion, no further lean should go beyond a safety limit of 27.5 millimetres over the existing lean of 220 millimetres.

To keep the lean within this limit, Burland told the British Association about the new method of pumping grout immediately under the base of the tower. More than 300 tons of grout were pumped in during construction. The tower’s, additional lean went between 10 and 25 millimetres, but never passed 27.5 millimetres.

After the construction work was completed in late 1997, a review of movements in nearby walls showed that the building was in better shape than had been thought before and the safety limit was raised to 35 millimetres before any action needs to be taken.

Since 1997,the tower has continued to lean, Burland told Modern Construction.The latest measurements, taken this year, suggest that the tower’s lean had just reached 35 millimetres. But following regular re-examinations of the tower, experts are sure that the tower has stabilised (稳定). A spokesman for London Underground says: “We understand the tower has stabilised and returned to its normal movement cycle.”

From Modern Construction, 16 September 2000

Question 2:We can infer from the article that________.

A.the tower of Big Ben with damage the Houses of Parliament

B.the Jubilee line should be stopped in Burland’s opinion

C.the writer is blaming Burland for making a mistake

D.the propping up work has proved to be successful

1.(★★★★★)In July 1994 Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, was struck by 21 pieces of comet(彗星). When the fragments(碎片)landed in the southern part of the giant planet, the explosions were watched by scientists here on earth. But what if our own planet was hit by a comet?

The year is 2094. It has been announced that a comet is heading towards the Earth. Most of it will miss our planet, but two fragments will probably hit the southern part of the Earth. The news has caused panic.

On 17 July, a fragment four kilometers wide enters the Earth’s atmosphere with a huge explosion. About half of the fragment is destroyed. But the major part survives and hits the South Atlantic at 200 times the speed of sound. The sea boils and an enormous wave is created and spreads. The wall of water rushes towards southern Africa at 800 kilometres an hour. Cities on the African coast are totally destroyed and millions of people are drowned. The wave moves into the Indian Ocean and heads towards Asia.

Millions of people are already dead in the southern part of the Earth, but the north won’t escape for long. Tons of broken pieces are thrown into the atmosphere by the explosions. As the sun is hidden by clouds of dust, temperatures around the world fall to almost zero. Crops are ruined. Wars break out as countries fight for food. A year later civilization has collapsed. No more than 10 million people have survived.

Could it really happen? In fact, it has already happened more than once in the history of the Earth. The dinosaurs(恐龙)were on the Earth for over 160 million years. Then 65 million years ago they suddenly disappeared. Many scientists believe that the Earth was hit by a space fragment. The dinosaurs couldn’t survive in the cold climate that followed and they became extinct. Will we meet the same end?

Question 1:It can be concluded that the passage is most probably part of a(n) ________.

A.horror story　 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 B.news report

C.research paper 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 D.article of popular science