题目
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The key to their success: 20 tablet computers(平板电脑) dropped off in their Ethiopian village in February by a U.S. group called One Laptop Per Child.
The goal is to find out whether kids using today’s new technology can teach themselves to read in places where no schools or teachers exist. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers analyzing the project data say they’re already amazed. “What I think has already happened is that the kids have already learned more than they would have in one year of kindergarten,” said Matt Keller, who runs the Ethiopia program.
The fastest learner—and the first to turn on one of the tablets—is 8-year-old Kelbesa Negusse. The device’s camera was disabled to save memory, yet within weeks Kelbesa had figured out its workings and made the camera work. He called himself a lion, a marker of accomplishment in Ethiopia.
With his tablet, Kelbasa rearranged the letters HSROE into one of the many English animal names he knows. Then he spelled words on his own. “Seven months ago he didn’t know any English. That’s unbelievable,” said Keller.
The project aims to get kids to a stage called “deep reading,” where they can read to learn. It won’t be in Amharic, Ethiopia’s first language, but in English, which is widely seen as the ticket to higher paying jobs.
小题1:How does the Ethiopia program benefit the kids in the village?
| A．It trains teachers for them. |
| B．It contributes to their self-study. |
| C．It helps raise their living standards. |
| D．It provides funds for building schools. |
| A．They need more time to analyze data. |
| B．More children are needed for the research. |
| C．He is confident about the future of the project. |
| D．The research should be carried out in kindergartens. |
| A．learn English words quickly. |
| B．draw pictures of animals. |
| C．write letters to researchers. |
| D．make phone calls to his friends. |
| A．To offer Ethiopians higher paying jobs. |
| B．To make Amharic widely used in the world. |
| C．To help Ethiopian kids read to learn in English. |
| D．To assist Ethiopians in learning their first language. |
答案
小题1:B
小题2:C
小题3:A
小题4:C
解析
【文章大意】本文是一篇调查研究。讲述的是美国一个团体在俄塞俄比亚没有学校和老师的地方，通过给孩子们20台平板电脑的方式看使用新技术的孩子是否能够教会自己阅读。这个计划的目的是让孩子到达一个“深读”的阶段，他们能通过阅读来学习。不是学习埃塞俄比亚的官方语言阿姆哈拉语，而是被广泛认为是获得高薪工作的“敲门砖”的英语。
小题1:B考查细节理解。通过对文章的阅读可知，这个计划的目的是看看孩子们能否再没有学校和老师的情况下自学，通过这个计划人们发现这些孩子会背英文字母表，有的甚至会拼单词，这说明这个计划对孩子们的自学是有益的。故选B。
小题2:C考查判断推理。Keller认为孩子们自学学到的知识比他们在幼儿园一年学的还多，这说明他对这个计划的前景是满怀信心的。故选C。
小题3:A考查细节理解。通过对文章倒数第二段的阅读可知，Keller对Kelbesa在短短七个月里从不认识英语到会拼写英语感到不可思议，故选A。
小题4:C考查细节理解。由文章最后一段“The program aims to get kids to a stage called “deep reading”, where they can read to learn. It won’t be …but in English.”可知，这个计划的目的是帮助埃塞俄比亚的孩子学会用英语阅读。故选C。
核心考点
试题【The kids in this village wear dirty, ragged clothes. They sleep beside cows and 】；主要考察你对题材分类等知识点的理解。[详细]
举一反三
Language is our greatest treasure as a species, and what do we ____ do with it? We gossip. About others" behaviour and private lives, such as who"s doing what with whom, who"s in and who"s out-and why; how to deal with difficult ____ situations involving children, lovers, and colleagues.
So why are we keen on gossiping? Are we just natural ____, of both time and words? Or do we talk a lot about nothing in particular simply to avoid facing up to the really important issues of life? It"s not the case according to Professor Robin Dunbar. In fact, in his latest book, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, the psychologist says gossip is one of these really____issues.
Dunbar ____ the traditional view that language was developed by the men at the early stage of social development in order to organize their manly hunting activities more effectively, or even to promote the exchange of poetic stories about their origins and the supernatural. Instead he suggests that language evolved among women. We don"t spend two-thirds of our time gossiping just because we can talk, argues Dunbar—____, he goes on to say, language evolved specifically to allow us to gossip.
Dunbar arrived at his cheery theory by studying the ____ of the higher primates（灵长类动物）like monkeys. By means of grooming--cleaning the fur by brushing it, monkeys form groups with other individuals on whom they can rely for support in the event of some kind of conflict within the group or____ from outside it.
As we human beings evolve from a particular branch of the primate family, Dunbar ____ that at one time in our history we did much the same. Grouping together made sense because the bigger the group, the greater the ____ it provided; on the other hand, the bigger the group, the greater the stresses of living close to others. Grooming helped to ____ the pressure and calm everybody down.
But as the groups got bigger and bigger, the amount of time spent in grooming activities also had to be ____ to maintain its effectiveness. Clearly, a more ____ kind of grooming was needed, and thus language evolved as a kind of vocal（有声的）grooming which allowed humans to develop relationship with ever-larger groups by exchanging information over a wider network of individuals than would be possible by one-to-one ____ contact.
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The set-up is relatively simple. Both users wear a virtual reality headset with a camera on the top. The video from each camera is sent to the other person, so what you see is the exact view of your partner. If she moves her arm, you see it. If you move your arm, she sees it.
To get used to seeing another person"s body without actually having control of it, participants start by raising their arms and legs very slowly, so that the other can follow along. Eventually, this kind of slow synchronised（同步的）movement becomes comfortable, and participants really start to feel as though they are living in another person"s body.
Using such technology promises to alter people"s behaviour afterwards-potentially for the better. Studies have shown that virtual reality can be effective in fighting racism-the bias（偏见）that humans have against those who don"t look or sound like them. Researchers at the University of Barcelona gave people a questionnaire called the Implicit Association Test, which measures the strength of people"s associations between, for instance, black people and adjectives such as good, bad, athletic or awkward. Then they asked them to control the body of a dark skinned digital character using virtual reality glasses, before taking the test again. This time, the participants" bias scores were lower. The idea is that once you"ve "put yourself in another"s shoes" you"re less likely to think ill of them, because your brain has internalised the feeling of being that person.
The creators of The Machine to Be Another hope to achieve a similar result. "At the end of body swapping, people feel like holding each other in their arms," says Arthur Pointeau, a programmer with the project. "It"s a really nice way to have this kind of experience. I would really, really recommend it to everyone."
小题1:The word "swapping" (paragraph 1) is closest in meaning to______.
| A．building | B．exchanging | C．controlling | D．transplanting |
| A．our feelings are related to our bodily experience |
| B．we can learn to take control of other people"s bodies |
| C．participants will live more passionately after the experiment |
| D．The Machine to Be Another can help people change their sexes |
| A．they fought strongly against racism |
| B．they scored lower on the test for racism |
| C．they changed their behaviour dramatically |
| D．they were more biased against those unlike them |
| A．technology helps people realize their dreams |
| B．our biases could be eliminated through experiments |
| C．virtual reality helps promote understanding among people |
| D．our points of view about others need changing constantly |
After many tiring……from city to city, Atwood thought there must be a better way to do them . She hired some technical experts and started her own company in 2004. Together they designed the LongPen. Here’s how it works: The author writes a personal message and signature on a computer tablet(手写板) using a special pen. On the receiving end, in another city, a robotic arm fitted with a regular pen signs the book. The author and fan can talk with each other via webcams(网络摄像机) and computer screens。
Work on the LongPen began in Atwood’s basement(地下室). At first, they had no idea it would be as hard as it turned out to be. The device went through several versions, including one that actually had smoke coming out of it. The investing finally completed, teat runs w ere made in Ottawa, and the LongPen was officially launched at the 2006 London Book Fair. From here , Atwood conducted two transatlantic book signings of her latest book for fans in Toronto and New York City.
The LongPen produces a unique signature each time because it copies the movement of the author in real time. It has several other potential applications. It could increase credit card security and allow people to sign contracts from another province. The video exchange between signer and receiver can be recorded on DVD for proof when legal documents are used.
“It’s really fun”, said the owner of a bookstore, who was present for one of the test runs. “Obviously you can’t shake hands with the author but there are chances for a connection that you don’t get from a regular book signing..
The response to the invention has not been all favorable. Atwood has received criticism from authors who think she is trying to end book tours. But she said, “It will be possible to go to places that you never got sent to before because the publishers couldn’t afford it.”
小题1:Why did Atwood decide to invent the LongPen?
A. To set up her own company
B. To win herself greater popularity
C. To write her books in a new way
C. To make book signings less tiring
小题2:How does the LongPen work?
| A．I copies the author’s signature and prints it on a book. |
| B．It signs a book while receiving the author’s signature. |
| C．The webcam sends the author’s signature to another city. |
| D．The fan uses it to copy the author’s signature himself. |
| A．It has been completed but not put into use. |
| B．The basement caught fire by accident. |
| C．Some versions failed before its test run. |
| D．The designers were well-prepared for the difficulty. |
| A．To draft legal documents. |
| B．To improve credit card security |
| C．To keep a record of the author’s ideas. |
| D．To allow author and fan to exchange videos |
| A．Atwood doesn’t mean to end book tours. |
| B．Critics think the LongPen is of little use |
| C．Bookstore owners do not support the LongPen |
| D．Publishers dislike the LongPen for its high cost |
It was calculated that when its population reach its highest point, there were more than 3 billion passenger pigeons – a number equal to 24 to 40 percent of the total bird population in the United States, making it perhaps the most abundant birds in the world. Even as late as 1870 when their numbers had already become smaller, a flock believed to be 1 mile wide and 320 miles (about 515 kilometers) long was seen near Cincinnati.
Sadly, the abundance of passenger pigeons may have been their undoing. Where the birds were abundant, people believed there was an ever-lasting supply and killed them by the thousands. Commercial hunters attracted them to small clearings with grain, waited until pigeons had settled to feed, then threw large nets over them, taking hundreds at a time. The birds were shipped to large cities and sold in restaurants.
By the closing decades of the 19th century, the hardwood forests where passenger pigeons nested had been damaged by Americans’ need for wood, which scattered（驱散）the flocks and forced the birds to go farther north, where cold temperatures and spring storms contributed to their decline. Soon the great flocks were gone, never to be seen again.
In 1897, the state of Michigan passed a law prohibiting the killing of passenger pigeons, but by then, no sizable flocks had been seen in the state for 10 years. The last confirmed wild pigeon in the United States was shot by a boy in Pike County, Ohio, in 1900. For a time, a few birds survived under human care. The last of them, known affectionately as Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoological Garden in September 1, 1914.
小题1:In the 18th and early 19th centuries, passenger pigeons _______.
| A．were the biggest bird in the world |
| B．lived mainly in the south of America |
| C．did great harm to the natural environment |
| D．Were the largest population in the US |
| A．escape | B．ruin | C．liberation | D．evolution |
| A．To seek pleasure. | B．To save other birds. |
| C．To make money. | D．To protect crops. |
| A．It was ignored by the public. | B．It was declared too late. |
| C．It was unfair. | D．It was strict. |
The cottages could be an example of the industry’ s odd love affair with “low technology,” a concept associated with the natural world, and with old-school craftsmanship (手艺) that exists long before the Internet era. Low technology is not virtual (虚拟的) —so, to take advantage of it, Internet companies have had to get creative. The rescued wood cottages, fitted by hand in the late eighteen-hundreds, are an obvious example, but Twitter’s designs lie on the extreme end. Other companies are using a broader interpretation (阐释) of low technology that focuses on nature.
Amazon is building three glass spheres filled with trees, so that employees can “work and socialize in a more natural, park-like setting.” At Google’s office, an entire floor is carpeted in glass. Facebook’s second Menlo Park campus will have a rooftop park with a walking trail.
Olle Lundberg, the founder of Lundberg Design, has worked with many tech companies over the years. “We have lost the connection to the maker in our lives, and our tech engineers are the ones who feel impoverished (贫乏的) , because they’re surrounded by the digital world,” he says. “They’re looking for a way to regain their individual identity, and we’ve found that introducing real crafts is one way to do that.”
This craft based theory is rooted in history, William Morris, the English artist and writer, turned back to pre-industrial arts in the eighteen-sixties, just after the Industrial Revolution. The Arts and Crafts movement defined itself against machines. “Without creative human occupation, people became disconnected from life,” Morris said.
Research has shown that natural environments can restore(恢复) our mental capacities. In Japan, patients are encouraged to “forest-bathe,” taking walks through woods to lower their blood pressure.
These health benefits apply to the workplace as well. Rachel Kaplvin, a professor of environmental psychology, has spent years researching the restorative effects of natural environment. Her research found that workers with access to nature at the office—even simple views of trees and flowers—felt their jobs were less stressful and more satisfying. If low-tech offices can potentially nourish the brains and improve the mental health of employees then, fine, bring on the cottages.
小题1:The writer mentions the two nineteenth-century cottages to show that ________.
| A．Twitter is having a hard time |
| B．old cottages are in need of protection |
| C．early settlers once suffered from a dry climate in Montana |
| D．Internet companies have rediscovered the benefits of low technology |
| A．is related to nature | B．is out of date today |
| C．consumes too much energy | D．exists in the virtual world |
| A．have destroyed many pre-industrial arts |
| B．have a tradition of valuing arts and crafts |
| C．can become intelligent by learning history |
| D．can regain their individual identity by using machines |
| A．positive | B．defensive | C．cautious | D．doubtful |
| A．Past Glories, Future Dreams |
| B．The Virtual World, the Real Challenge |
| C．High-tech Companies, Low-tech Offices |
| D．The More Craftsmanship, the Less Creativity |
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