Question

Have you ever heard of “a ball of energy”? People often use it to describe very active children. But today we tell about the soccket, something that is a real soccer ball of energy. Julia Silverman and Jessica Matthews developed the soccket as part of a group project for an engineering class at Harvard University.

There are mechanisms (裝置) in a soccket. When you kick, hit or throw it, energy is then kept in it by these mechanisms instead of disappearing into the environment. Then the user can put something directly into the ball, like a lamp, or a mobile phone charger so that they can get energy from it. For every fifteen minutes of the game play, the soccket can provide enough electricity for an LED lamp for three hours, and the ball can store (儲(chǔ)藏) up to 24 hour’ electricity.

The International Energy Association reported last year that nearly one and a half billion people in the world had no electricity to use, and most of them live in sub-Saharan Africa and in India and other countries in Asia.

Julia Silverman and Jessica Matthews both had experiences in developing countries before they began the project. They knew that power shortages are a serious problem in really areas. There’s an energy crisis in the world. One out of every five people in the world don’t have any electricity. And besides that, there are a lot of health problems because without electricity, people have to use something like kerosene (煤油) lamps, which produce a lot of smoke.

Julia Silverman says the soccket ball is one small solution to a big problem. Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman hope their soccket ball will shine more light on the problem of power shortages. It offers people a chance to put their energy into the world’s most popular sport and get some energy in return.

1.From the passage, we know the soccket is _____.

A. a game B. an invention C. an energy D. a lamp

2.If you play the soccket for half an hour, it can provide an LED lamp with electricity for _____.

A. fifteen minutes B. half an hour C. six hours D. three hours

3.The underlined word “crisis” in the passage means _____.

A. a time of safety B. a time of difficulty C. a time of success D. a time of illness

4.We can infer (推斷) from the passage that _____.

A. Julia Silverman has never been to developing countries before

B. people all over the world will use the sOccket soon

C. kicking a soccket makes the energy disappear into the environment

D. people are expected to get some energy by playing soccket

5.The best title for the passage should be “________”.

A. How to Make Electricity B. How to Deal With Energy Crisis

C. A Soccer Ball That Gives Energy D. An Energy Shortage in the World

Answer 1