Soon computers and other machines will be able to remember you by looking at your eyes! The program works because everyone’s eyes are different. So in the future you won’t have to remember a number when you want to use a machine or take money out of a bank. You’ll just have to look at the machine and it will be able to tell who you are.
The eye-recognition（眼睛識別 program has already been tested in shops and banks in the USA, Britain, Spain, Italy and Turkey. Soon this technology（技術(shù)） will take the place of all other ways of finding out who people are.
However, scientists are also working on other systems. Machines will soon be able to know you from the shape of your face or hand or even your smell! We already have machines that can tell who you are from your voice or the mark made by your finger.
Eye-recognition is better than other kinds because your eyes don’t change as you get older, and don’t get dirty like hands or fingers, and even twins have different eyes. So the eye-recognition program can be up to 94% correct, depending on how good the technology is. However, some other programs may only be 51% correct at present. In Britain, it was found that 91% of people who had tried it said that they liked the idea of eye-recognition.
In the future your computer will be looking you in the eye. So smile!
【小題1】Where has the eye-recognition program already been tested in a few countries? In_______.

All living things on the earth need other living things to live. Nothing lives alone. Most animals must live in a group, and even a plant grows close together with others of the same kind. Sometimes one living thing kills another, one eats and the other is eaten. Each kind of life eats another kind of life in order to live, and together they create a food chain (鏈條). Some food chains are simple, while others are not. But all food chains begin with the sun, and all food chains become broken up if one of the links (鏈接) disappears.
All life needs sunlight to live on. But only plants can use sunlight directly. Plants are ‘factories’. They make food from sunlight, water and things in the soil (土壤) and air. Plants feed all other living things. Animals can only use the sun’s energy after it has been changed into food by plants. Some animals feed directly on plants, others eat smaller animals. Meat-eating animals are only eating plants indirectly.
What about humans? We are members of many food chains. We eat rice, vegetables, and fruits and so on. We also eat meat and drink milk. But we often break up the food chains. We kill wild animals and also make rivers, lakes and seas polluted. When these rivers, lakes and seas are polluted, the fish in them can not be eaten. If we eat the fish, we will get strange illnesses.
Each form of life is linked (關(guān)聯(lián)的) to all others. Breaking the links puts all life in danger.
【小題1】Which living things can use the sun’s energy directly?

Is it difficult for you to get up in the morning? Hiroyuki’s bed will solve your problem! Here is how it works.
The bed is connected to an alarm clock. First, the alarm clock rings. You have a few minutes to wake up. Next, a tape recorder in the bed plays soft music. The tape recorder in Hiroyuki’s bed plays a recording of his girlfriend. She whispered in a soft voice, “Wake up, darling, please.” After minutes later, Hiroyuki hears a recording of his boss. His boss shouts, “Wake up at once , or you’ll be late !”
If you don’t get up after the second recording, a mechanical “foot” in the bed will kick you in the head. The bed waits a few more minutes. What! You’re still in bed! Slowly the top of the bed rises higher and higher. The foot of the bed goes lower and lower. Finally you slide off the bed and onto the floor. You are out of bed awake!
Hiroyuki’s bed is not in stores. There is only one bed--- the bed Hiroyuki made for a contest. Maybe someday a company will make Hiroyuki’s bed and sell it in stores. Maybe people will buy millions of beds. Then Hiroyuki will be rich. If the bed makes Hiroyuki rich, he won’t need to work, and he won’t need to get up early!
【小題1】 The bed is useful to the people _______.

  We use the Internet for many things: business, shopping, writing letters, talking to people, finding information and so on. In recent years a new kind of English has grown on the Internet. There’s no real word for it yet, so we’ll call it e-talk. People don’t like typing too much. To save time, they turn phrases into a few letters called acronyms. Acronyms are often used in chat rooms. Some of them are
BTW (by the way)        BRB (be right back)
LOL (laughing out loud)    IMO (in my opinion)
People also use many abbreviations(縮寫). They are shortened forms of words. Some common abbreviations are:
Info(information)       puter (computer)
Pie(picture)           sec (second)
We usually don’t see people when we communicate on the Net, so people have new ways to show feelings. Most people use their keywords to draw “feeling”, such as:
:-)(happy)    :-p(joking)   :-( (sad)    :-0 (surprised)
These days, many forums(論壇) have picture feelings. For example,

(sad)      (happy)
There are even whole new words, like“newbie’s”(someone who is new on a chat board or forum).
It takes time for people to get used to e-talk. Also, different groups on the Net have their own special ways of communicating. Newbie’s have to ask other people what they mean. As the Internet grows, e-talk will continue to grow and change.
【小題1】What does the underlined word “acronyms” mean?

Stop. Listen! What do you hear? You may hear many different sounds. Some of those sounds may be noise. Noise is a loud or unwanted sound.
Noise can be caused by many kinds of machines, such as motorcycles, jet planes, farm tractors(拖拉機(jī)), rock music is also noise.
What happens to people who live near noisy machines or use them over a period of time? Doctors have found that these people have trouble in sleeping. But, most important, constant(不斷的) loud noise can cause a loss of hearing.
Scientists use a unit of measure called decibel(分貝) to measure the loudness of a sound. The sound of a quiet room, for example, measures 35 decibels. Talking measures between 40 and 65 decibels. Sounds from traffic and from some rock bands can measure over 120 decibels. Noise at this high level(層次) causes the great hearing loss.
根據(jù)短文內(nèi)容，選擇正確的答案（每小題1分，共5分）
【小題1】According to the passage, noise is      .

B
Sun Liping, 6 , lives in a small village in Yunnan. Her biggest wish is to have running water in her home. All 35 families in Sun’s village have a serious problem--- they don’t have enough water. Every day, the villagers have to walk 20 minutes to get water.
Last year, the worst drought since the 1950s hit Yunnan, making more than 2 million people short of drinking water. This year, the drought is even worse.
Not only Yunnan, but many other provinces in China are short of water as well, such as Gansu and Qinghai.
According to a report on February 17, each Chinese person has about 28% of the world’s average（平均的） person’s amount of available(可用的) water. Two thirds of China’s cities are short of water and nearly 300 million people in rural areas don’t have safe water for drinking.
Every drop of water is important. Waste a drop of water a day and you lose a bucket(桶) a year. How can we use water in a smart way? Here are some tips for you to save water in your daily life:
1. Put plastic bottles of water in your toilet to cut down the water waste when you flush (沖洗) your toilet.
2. Don’t keep the water running while you’re brushing your teeth or washing your face and hands.
3. Use low-flow(低流量) shower heads .
4. Use a bucket to collect shower water while you wait for it to warm up.
5. Make your shower time shorter.
6. Set up a rain bucket to collect rainwater for watering plants or flowers.
【小題1】 What is the problem in Sun’s village?

Have you ever wondered?
1.      Why do airplanes take longer to fly west than east?
It can take five hours to go west-east from New York (NY) to London but seven hours to travel east-west from London to NY. The reason for the difference is an atmospheric phenomenon (大氣現(xiàn)象) known as the jet stream (氣流). The jet stream is a very high altitude (=" above" sea level) wind which always blows from the west to the east across the Atlantic. So the planes moving at a constant air speed go faster from the west to the east when they are moving with the wind than in the opposite.
2.      What would happen if the gravity on Earth was suddenly turned off?
Supposing we could magically turn off gravity. Would buildings and other structures（建筑物）float away? What happened would depend on (依靠) how strongly the things were attached (吸附) to the earth. The earth is moving at quite a speed, moving at over a thousand miles per hour. If you turn something around your head on a string, it goes around in a circle until you let go of the string. Then it flies off in a straight line. ‘Turning off’ gravity would be like letting go of the string. Things not attached to the earth would fly off in a straight line. People in buildings would suddenly shoot upwards at a great speed until they hit the ceiling (=" top" surface of a room). Most things outside would fly off into space.
【小題1】What information can we get from the first passage?

Have you ever stayed in a hotel ? Most Chinese hotels often provide guests with things like disposable(一次性的) toothbrushes , toothpaste , shampoo, and slippers. Many guests like the idea because they don’t have to bring their own . But , if you travel to Beijing , remember to bring your own things. Starting from now on , some hotels in Beijing will no longer provide guests with these disposables. They want to ask people to use less disposable things.
Many disposable things are made of plastic. People throw them away after only using them once. It is a waste of natural resources and is very bad for the environment . Do you know , one Chinese person makes as much as 400Kg of waste a year! Most of that waste comes from disposable things. In Beijing , people throw away about 19,000 tons of plastic bags and 1,320 tons of plastic lunch bowls every year! Plastic can take between 100 and 400 years to break down. So the less plastic we throw out, the better. So, wherever you travel , bring your own things and use them again and again .
Back at home and school, you can also do something to make our world a better place .Try to do these things in your daily life: Use cloth shopping bags , not plastic ones. After using a plastic bag , wash it out and let it dry. Then you can use it over and over again. Do not use paper cups. At your school canteen(食堂), use your own bowl and chopsticks instead of disposable ones.
【小題1】Why do many hotels provide guests with some disposable things ?

Scientists are very interested in the Universe，and they always want to know more about it. Years ago they knew many things about the moon. They knew how big it is and how far away it is from the earth. But they wanted to know more about it. They thought the best way was to send men to the moon. The moon is about 384,000 kilometers away from the earth. A plane cannot fly to the moon because the air reaches only 240 kilometers away from the earth. But something can fly even when there is no air. That is a rocket(火箭)
How does a rocket fly? There is gas（氣體） in the rocket. When the gas is made very hot inside the rocket, it will rush out of the end of the rocket, so it can make the rocket fly up into the sky. Rockets can fly out into space. Rockets with men in them have been to the moon. Several rockets without men in them have flown to another planet(行星) much farther away than the moon. One day, rockets may be able to go to any place in space.
【小題1】Scientists knew ____________ the moon is.
A: how far    B: how big    C: how old    D: both A and B
【小題2】 The earth is about 384,000 kilometres away from the _____.
A: space    B: universe    C: sun   D: moon
【小題3】A plane cannot fly to the moon because ___________
A: there is no air above 240 kilometers away from the earth.
B: there is no gas in the plane
C: the plane is not strong enough
D: the plane can not fly a long way
【小題4】 The hot gas in the rocket is used for___________
A: keeping the air in the rocket fresh(新鮮的)
B: Keeping the men in the rocket warm
C: making the rocket fly up.
D: cooking food for the men
【小題5】 What is the writer’s attitude(態(tài)度) to the universe’s future.
A: Realistic(現(xiàn)實的)         B: Imaginative(幻想的)
C: Confident(有信心的)      D: Sad

The rapid growth of Smartphones and electronic tablets（平板電腦）is making the Internet favourite for Americans reading news, a report said.
News consumption online increased 17% last year from the year before. Television news, newspapers, radio and magazines all lost audience last year. For the first time, the number of people who get news online at least three times a week is larger than the number of people who get news from the newspapers. TV news has been the most popular since the 1960s. It has replaced the afternoon newspapers. But now the online news seems to be more popular than the TV news.
People are used to having the Internet available on phones or small tablets. In December, 2010, 41% of Americans said they got most of their news on the Internet, more than double the 17% who said that a year earlier, the report said. In January, 2011, 7% of Americans owned electronic tablets, nearly double what it was three months earlier. It was the fastest-growing new digital technology, ahead of mobile phones when they were introduced. The online ad income was expected to surpass（超過）print newspaper ad income for the first time in 2010.
The news business used to be the intermediary（中介）. You needed newspapers and TV stations to reach your customers. In this age of the computer, it’s the software developers that you need.
【小題1】Americans like getting news from ________ best today.