In a few years, you might be able to speak Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, and English

— and all at the same time. This sounds incredible, but Alex Waibel, a computer science professor at US's Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Germany's University of Karlsruhe, announced last week that it may soon be reality. He and his team have invented software and hardware that could make it far easier for people who speak different languages to understand each other.?

One application, called Lecture Translation, can easily translate a speech from one language into another. Current translation technologies typically limit speakers to certain topics or a limited vocabulary. Users also have to be trained how to use the programme.?

Another prototype(雏形机) can send translations of a speech to different listeners depending on what language they speak. “It is like having a simultaneous translator right next to you but without disturbing the person next to you,” Waibel said.?

Prefer to read? So-called Translation Glasses transcribe(转录) the translations on a tiny liquid-crystal(液晶) display(LCD) screen.?

Then there’s the Muscle Translator. Electrodes capture the electrical signals from facial muscle movements made naturally when a person is mouthing words. The signals are then translated into speech. The electrodes could be replaced with wireless chips implanted in a person's face, according to researchers.?

During a demonstration held last Thursday in CMU's Pittsburgh campus, a Chinese student named Stan Jou had 11 tiny electrodes attached to the muscles of his cheeks, neck and throat. Then he mouthed — without speaking aloud — a few words in Mandarin(普通话) to the audience. A few seconds later, the phrase was displayed on a computer screen and spoken out by the computer in English and Spanish: “Let me introduce our new prototype.”?

This particular gadget(器械),when fully developed, might allow anyone to speak in any number of languages or, as Waibel put it, “to switch your mouth to a foreign language”. “The idea behind the university's prototypes is to create ‘good enough’ bridges for cross-cultural exchanges that are becoming more common in the world,” Waibel said.?

With spontaneous(自发的) translators, foreign drivers in Germany could listen to traffic warnings on the radio, tourists in China could read all the signs and talk with local people, and leaders of different countries could have secret talks without any interpreters there.?

Which of the following statements is not TRUE?

A. A lecture translation can translate what you said into other languages easily.?

B. There is no Muscle Translator in the world now.?

C. Muscle Translators can translate what you think into speech if you just move your mouth.?

D. The spontaneous translators will help us a lot.

What kind of equipment is NOT mentioned in this passage?

A. Lecture Translation.                       

B. Muscle Translator.?

C. Multiple Translator.                       

D. Translation Prototype.

What’s the final destination of inventing the language translators??

A. To make cultural exchanges between different countries easier.?

B. To help students learn foreign languages more easily.?

C. To make people live in foreign countries more comfortably.?

D. To help people learn more foreign languages in the future.

What can be inferred from the seventh paragraph?

A. The translator is so good that it can translate any language into the very language you need.?

B. The translator is becoming more and more common in the world as a bridge.?

C. With the help of the translator, you only need to open your mouth when you want to say something without saying the exact words at all.?

D. The translator needs to be improved before being put into market.

Where can this passage probably be excerpted from?

A. A newspaper.                         

B. A magazine on science.?

C. A fairy tale.                                

D. A scientific fantasy book.

In a few years，you might be able to speak Chinese，Korean，Japanese，French，and English-and all at the same time. This sounds incredible，but Alex Waibel，a computer science professor at US's Car-negie Mellon University (CMU) and Germany's University of Karlsruhe，announced last week that it may soon be reality. He and his team have invented software and hardware that could make it far easier for people who speak different languages to understand each other.
One application，called Lecture Translation，can easily translate a speech from one language into an-other. Current translation technologies typically limit speakers to certain topics or a limited vocabulary. Us-ers also have to be trained how to use the programme.
Another machine can send translations of a speech to different listeners depending on what languagethey speak. “It is like having a simultaneous translator right next to you but without disturbing the person next to you，”Waibel said
Prefer to read? So- called Translation Glasses transcribe(转录) the translations on a tiny liquid-crystal display(LCD) screen.
Then there's the Muscle Translator. Electrodes capture the electrical signals from facial muscle movements made naturally when a person is mouthing words. The signals are then translated into speech.The electrodes could be replaced with wireless chips implanted in a person's face，according to research-ers.
During a demonstration held last Thursday in CMU's Pittsburgh campus，a Chinese student named Sang Jun had 11 tiny electrodes attached to the muscles of his cheeks，neck and throat. Then he mouthed-without speaking aloud- a few words in Mandarin(普通话) to the audience. A few seconds later，the phrase was displayed on a computer screen and spoken out by the computer in English and Spanish: “Let me introduce our new prototype.”
This particular instrument，when fully developed，might allow anyone to speak in any number of lan-guages or，as Waibel put it，“to switch your mouth to a foreign language”. “The idea behind the universi-ty's prototypes is to create'good enough' bridges for cross- cultural exchanges that are becoming more common in the world，”Waibel said.
With spontaneous(自发的) translators，foreign drivers in Germany  could listen to traffic warnings on the radio; tourists in China could read all the signs and talk with local people;leaders of different coun-tries could have secret talks without any interpreters there.
【小题1】What can't be learned from the text?

请根据下面需要志愿帮助的信息，找出能够为他们提供帮助的援助者。
A. Suppose World Cup will be held in Bejing and many people from other countries will come to visit China. The taxi drivers in Dongfeng Taxi Company think the way to show kindness is to be able to greet the foreigners in their languages. They need someone who can teach them languages and the best time is at night when they are not so busy.
B. Tim is so addicted to on-line games that he cannot concentrate on his study like before. Now he often misses school in order to play games, thus telling lies to his teachers and parents again and again, though he realizes what he does is wrong, he just can’t stop it. How badly he needs someone’s help.
C. Marie, a 44-year-old single mother of three, has to walk two miles to the nearest supermarket twice a week because she doesn’t know which bus to take. What’s worse, since she does not know words, she can not write out a shopping list. Also, she can only recognize items by sight, so if the product has a different label, she will not recognize it as the product she wants.
D. “ Help hand” organization will hold an event to help the starving children in Africa. The even starts in August and those taking part in will go without food for 30 hours. In this way, it is expected that money will be raised for the poor children.
E. “ Green Earth” cares a lot for the animals in danger. Still many people in the world don’t know much about the importance of animal protecting. This summer vacation a lot of events will be organized to call on people to live in harmony with our earth.
F. A group of young children in a remote village in southwest China are in great need of teachers. Because of the low salary, any teachers came and then went. The villagers hope to have a teacher who can stay for at least a year, because they know knowledge can make a different to the children’s future.
请阅读下列五个援助者的基本情况， 然后匹配相关信息：
【小题1】 Stephen: Last summer I went through a training program and became a literacy volunteer. When I began to discover what other people’s lives were like because they could not read, I realized the true importance of reading.
【小题2】 Ben: After graduation, I don’t want to apply a job at once. I plan to spare one year to help those who need help most and try my best to improve their lives.
【小题3】 Susan: I am a girl from England and has studied French for years. I am here in Beijing University studying Chinese. I hope the voluntary work will help me to get in touch with Chinese people and get to know about China. Although my study is busy, I can be free at night and at the weekends.
【小题4】 Tom: Since I myself have overcome a lot of difficulties in my life, I understand young people’s problems and I know how to listen patiently to others and offer some advice. I am working now in the daytime so I can only spend two to three hours a day at night to help others.
【小题5】Liza: I burst into tears when I saw the programme. What a bad sight! They are only bone and skin left. They are dying. I realized how lucky I am with enough food and a good chance to get education. The summer vacation is coming and I hope I can do something for them.
提供援助者                        接受援助者
1. Stephen                            A
2. Ben                               B
3. Susan                              C
4. Tom                               D
5. Liza                               E
Choose the most suitable heading from A – F for each paragraph.

Passage Nineteen (TV’s Harmfulness)
Yes, but what did we use to do before there was television? How often we hear statements like this! Television hasn’t been with us all that long, but we are already beginning to forget what the world was like without it. Before we admitted the one-eyed monster into our homes, we never fond it difficult to occupy our spare time. We used to enjoy civilized pleasures. For instance, we used to have hobbies, we used to entertain our friends and be entertained by them, we used to go outside for our amusements to theatres, cinemas, restaurants and sporting events. We even used to read books and listen to music and broadcast talks occasionally. All that belongs to the past. Now all our free time is regulated by the goggle box. We rush home or gulp down our meals to be in time for this or that programme. We have even given up sitting at table and having a leisurely evening meal, exchanging the news of the day. A sandwich and a glass of beer will do – anything, providing it doesn’t interfere with the programme. The monster demands and obtains absolute silence and attention. If any member of the family dares to open his mouth during a programme, he is quickly silenced.
Whole generations are growing up addicted to the telly. Food is left uneaten, homework undone and sleep is lost. The telly is a universal pacifier. It is now standard practice for mother to keep the children quiet by putting them in the living-room and turning on the set. It doesn’t matter that the children will watch rubbishy commercials or spectacles of sadism and violence – so long as they are quiet.
There is a limit to the amount of creative talent available in the world. Every day, television consumes vast quantities of creative work. That is why most of the programmes are so bad: it is impossible to keep pace with the demand and maintain high standards as well. When millions watch the same programmes, the whole world becomes a village, and society is reduced to the conditions which obtain in preliterate communities. We become utterly dependent on the two most primitive media of communication: pictures and the spoken word.
Television encourages passive enjoyment. We become content with second-hand experiences. It is so easy to sit in our armchairs watching others working. Little by little, television cuts us off from the real world. We get so lazy, we choose to spend a fine day in semi-darkness, glued to our sets, rather than go out into the world itself. Television may be s splendid medium of communication, but it prevents us from communicating with each other. We only become aware how totally irrelevant television is to real living when we spend a holiday by the sea or in the mountains, far away from civilization. In quiet, natural surroundings, we quickly discover how little we miss the hypnotic tyranny of King Telly.
1.What is the biggest harm of TV?
A.It deprives people of communication with the real world.
B.People become lazy.
C.People become dependent on second-hand experience.
D.TV consumes a large part of one’s life.
2.In what way can people forget TV?
A.Far away from civilization.
B.To a mountain.
C.By the sea.
D.In quiet natural surroundings.
3.What does a mother usually do to keep her children quiet?
A.Let them watch the set.
B.Put them in the living room.
C.Let them watch the rubbish.
D.Let them alone.
4.What does the first sentence in the first paragraph mean?
A.We found it difficult to occupy our spare time.
B.We become addicted to TV.
C.What we used to do is different from now.
D.We used to enjoy civilized pleasures.

D
Tales From Animal Hospital  
David Grant
David Grant has become a familiar face to millions of fans of Animal Hospital. Here Dr Grant tells us the very best of his personal stories about the animals the has treated, including familiar patients such as the dogs Snowy and Duchess, the delightful cat Marigold Serendipity Diamond. He also takes the reader behind the scenes at Harmsworth Memorial Animal Hospital
as he describes his day, from ordinary medical check-ups to surgery(外科手术).Tales From Animal Hospital will delight all fans of the programme and anyone who has a lively interest in their pet, whether it be cat, dog or snake!
￡14.99 Hardback 272pp Simon Schuster
ISBN 0751304417  
Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer  
Michael White
From the author of Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science, comes this colourful description of the life of the world’s first modern scientist. Interesting yet based on fact, Michael White’s learned yet readable new book offers a true picture of Newton completely different from what people commonly know about him. Newton is shown as a gifted scientist with very human weaknesses who stood at the point in history where magic(魔术)ended and science began.
￡18.99 Hardback 320pp Fourth Estate  
ISBN 1857024168
Fermat’s Last Theorem  
Simon Singh  
In 1963 a schoolboy called Andrew Wiles reading in his school library came across the world’s greatest mathematical problem: Fermat’s Last Theorem(定理). First put forward by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in the seventeenth century, the theorem had baffled and beaten the finest mathematical minds, including a French woman scientist who made a major advance in working out the problem, and who had to dress like a man in order to be able to study at the Ecole Polytechnique. Through unbelievable determination Andrew Wiles finally worked out the problem in 1995. An unusual story of human effort over three centuries, Fermat’s Last Theorem will delight specialists and general readers alike.
￡2.99 Hardback 384pp Fourth Estate
ISBN 1857025210  
68. What is Animal Hospital?  
A. A news story.            B. A popular book.
C. A research report.         D. A TV programme.
69. In Michael White’s book, Newton is described as        .
A. a person who did not look the same as in many pictures
B. a person who lived a colourful and meaningful life
C. a great but not perfect man
D. an old-time magician  
70. Which of the following best explains the meaning of the word “baffled” as it is used in the text?  
A. To encourage people to raise questions.
B. To cause difficulty in understanding.
C. To provide a person with an explanation.
D. To limit people’s imagination.  
71. What is the purpose of writing these three texts?
A. To make the books easier to read.
B. To show the importance of science.
C. To introduce new authors.
D. To sell the books.