(10·浙江C篇)

The term “multitasking” originally referred to a computer’s ability to carry out several tasks at one time. For many people, multitasking has become a way of life and even a key to success. In fact, some excellent mental aerobic exercises (大腦訓(xùn)練) involve engaging the brain in two or more challenging activities at a time. Although checking e-mail while talking on a phone and reading the newspaper may be second nature for some people, many times multitasking can make us less productive, rather than more. And studies show that too much multitasking can lead to increased stress, anxiety and memory loss.

   In order to multitask, the brain uses an area known as the prefrontal cortex (前額葉腦皮層). Brian scans of volunteers performing multiple tasks together show that as they shift from task to task, this front part of the brain actually takes a moment of rest between tasks. You may have experienced a prefrontal cortex “moment of rest” yourself if you’ve ever dialed (撥電話) a phone number and suddenly forgotten who you dialed when the line is answered. What probably occurred is that between the dialing and the answering, your mind shifted to anther thought or task, and then took that “moment” to come back. Research has also shown that for many volunteers, job efficiency (效率) declines while multitasking, as compared to when they perform only one task at a time.

   Multitasking is easiest when at least one of the tasks is habitual, or requires little thought. Most people don’t find it difficult to eat and read the newspaper at the same time. However, when two or more attention-requiring tasks are attempted at one time, people sometimes make mistakes.

   We often don’t remember things as well when we’re trying to manage several details at the same time. Without mental focus, we may not pay enough attention to new information coming in, so it never makes it into our memory stores. That is one of the main reasons we forget people’s names---even sometimes right after they have introduced themselves. Multitasking can also affect our relationships. If someone checks their e-mail while on the phone with a friend, they may come off as absent-minded or disinterested. It can also cause that person to miss or overlook key information being passed on to them.

   本篇文章是一篇說明文。

49. Why are some mental aerobic exercises designed to engage people in multitasking?

    A. To make them more productive.         B. To reduce their stress and anxiety.

C. To develop their communication skills.  D. To help them perform daily tasks more easily.    

50. According to Paragraph 2, why may a person suddenly forget who has called?

 A. He may leave his prefrontal cortex temporarily damaged.

 B. He is probably interrupted by another task.

 C. He is probably not very familiar with the person he has called.

 D. He may need a rest between dialing and speaking.

51. People tend to make mistake when ____.

   A. they perform several challenging tasks at a time.

   B. new messages are processed one after another

   C. their relationships with others are affected

   D. the tasks require little thought

52. What is the main idea of the passage?

A. Multitasking has become a way of life.

B. Multitasking often leads to efficiency decline.

C. Multitasking exercises need to be improved.

D. Multitasking enables people to remember things better.

(10·四川B篇)

Boiler rooms are often dirty and steamy, but this one is clean and cool. Fox Point is a very new47-unit living building in South Bronx, one of the city’s poorest areas. Two-thirds of the people living there are formerly (以前) homeless people, whose rent is paid by the government. The rest are low-income families. The boiler room has special equipment, which produces energy for electricity and heat. It reuses heat that would otherwise be lost to the air, reducing carbon emissions(碳排放)while also cutting costs.

Fox Point is operated by Palladia, a group that specializes in providing housing and services to needy, people. Palladia received support from Enterprise Community Partners (ECP), which helps build affordable housing by providing support to housing developers.

ECP has created national standards for healthy, environmentally (環(huán)境方面) clever and affordable homes which are called, the Green Communities Standards. These standards include water keeping, energy saving and the use of environmentally friendly building materials. Meeting the standards increases housing construction costs by 2%, which is rapidly paid back by lower running costs. Even the positioning of a window to get most daylight can help save energy.

Michael. Bloomberg, New York's mayor, plans to create 165,000 affordable housing units for500,000 New Yorkers. Almost 80% of New York City’s greenhouse-gas emissions come from buildings, and 40% of those are caused, by housing.. So he recently announced that the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation and Development (DHPD) , whose duty is to develop and keep the city’s supply of affordable housing, will require all its new projects to follow ECP’s green standards.

Similar measures have been taken by other cities such as Cleveland and Denver, but New York’s DHPD is the largest city developer of affordable housing in the country.

45. What is the purpose of describing the boiler room in the first paragraph?

A. To explain the measures the city takes to care for poor people.

B. To suggest that affordable housing is possible in all areas.

C. To show how the environment-friendly building works.

D. To compare old and new boiler rooms.

46. What is an advantage of the buildings meeting the Green Communities Standards?

A. Lower running costs.

B. Costing less in construction.　

C. Less air to be lost in hot days.

D. Better prices for homeless people.

47. It can be learned from the text that,　　　　　

A. New York City is seriously polluted

B. people’s daily life causes many carbon emissions in New York City

C. a great number of people in New York City don't have houses to live in

D. some other cities have developed more affordable housing than New York City

48. What is the main purpose of this text?

A. To call on people to pay more attention to housing problems.

B. To prove that some standards are needed for affordable housing.

C. To ask society to help homeless people and low-income families.

D. To introduce healthy, environmentally clever-and affordable housing.

 (10·上海C篇)

The 2012 London Olympics had enough problems to worry about. But one more has just been added - a communications blackout caused by solar storms.

    After a period of calm within the Sun, scientists have detected the signs of a flesh cycle of sunspots that could peak in 2012, just in time for the arrival of the Olympic torch in London.

    Now scientists believe that this peak could result in vast solar explosions that could throw billions of tons of charged matter towards the Earth, causing strong solar storms that could jam the telecommunications satellites and interact links sending five Olympic broadcast from London.

    "The Sun's activity has a strong influence on the Earth. The Olympics could be in the middle of the next solar maximum which could affect the functions of communications satellites," said Professor Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. 

    At the peak of the cycle, violent outbursts called coronal mass ejections (日冕物質(zhì)拋射) occur in the Sun's atmosphere, throwing out great quantities of electrically-charged matter. " A coronal mass ejection can carry a billion tons of solar material into space at over a million    kilometres per hour. Such events can expose astronauts to a deadly amount, can disable satellites, cause power failures on Earth and disturb communications," Professor Harrison added. The risk is greatest during a solar maximum when there is the greatest number of sunspots.

    Next week in America, NASA is scheduled to launch a satellite for monitoring solar activity called the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which will take images of the Sun that are 10 times clearer than the most advanced televisions available.

    The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory helped to make the high-tech cameras that will capture images of the solar flares (太陽耀斑) and explosions as they occur.

    Professor Richard Hold away, the lab's director, said that the SDO should be able to provide early warning of a solar flare or explosion big enough to affect satellite communications on Earth "If we have advance warning, we'll be able to reduce the damage. What you don't want is things switching off for a week with no idea of what's caused the problem," he said.

72. The phrase "communications blackout" in paragraph 1 most probably refers to      during the 2012 Olympics.

   A. the extinguishing of the Olympic torch

   B. the collapse of broadcasting systems

   C. the transportation breakdown in London

   D. the destruction of weather satellites

73. What can be inferred about the solar activity described in the passage?

   A. The most fatal matter from the corona falls onto Earth.

   B. The solar storm peak occurs in the middle of each cycle.

   C. It takes several seconds for the charged matter to reach Earth.

   D. The number of sunspots declines after coronal mass ejections.

74. According to the passage, NASA will launch a satellite to _________.

   A. take images of the solar system         B. provide early warning of thunderstorms

   C. keep track of solar activities            D. improve the communications on Earth

75. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

   A. Solar Storms: An Invisible Killer

   B. Solar Storms: Earth Environment in Danger

   C. Solar Storms: Threatening the Human Race

   D. Solar Storms: Human Activities to Be Troubled

 (10·山東D篇)

Batteries can power anything from small sensors to large systems. While scientists are finding ways to make them smaller but even more powerful, problems can arise when these batteries are much larger and heavier than the devices themselves. University of Missouri(MU) researchers are developing a nuclear energy source that is smaller, lighter and more efficient.

“To provide enough power, we need certain methods with high energy density(密度)”，said Jae Kwon, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU. “The radioisotope(放射性同位素) battery can provide power density that is much higher than chemical batteries.”

Kwon and his research team have been working on building a small nuclear battery, presently the size and thickness of a penny, intended to power various micro / nanoelectromechanreal systems (M/NEMS). Although nuclear batteries can cause concerns, Kwon said they are safe.

“People hear the word ‘nuclear’ and think of something very dangerous,” he said, “However, nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pace-makers, space satellites and underwater systems.”

His new idea is not only in the battery’s size, but also in its semiconductor(半導(dǎo)體). Kwon’s battery uses a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor.

“The key part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure(晶體結(jié)構(gòu)) of the solid semiconductor,” Kwon said, “By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem.”

Together with J. David Robertson, chemistry professor and associate director of the MU Research Reactor, Kwon is working to build and test the battery. In the future, they hope to increase the battery’s power, shrink its size and try with various other materials. Kwon said that battery could be thinner than the thickness of human hair.

71. Which of the following is true of Jae Kwon?

A. He teaches chemistry at MU. 

B. He developed a chemical battery.

C. He is working on a nuclear energy source.

D. He made a breakthrough in computer engineering.

72. Jae Kwon gave examples in Paragraph 4_________.

A. to show chemical batteries are widely applied.

B. to introduce nuclear batteries can be safely used.

C. to describe a nuclear-powered system.

D. to introduce various energy sources.

73. Liquid semiconductor is used to _________.

A. get rid of the radioactive waste  

B. test the power of nuclear batteries.

C. decrease the size of nuclear batteries

D. reduce the damage to lattice structure.

74. According to Jae Kwon, his nuclear battery _______.

A. uses a solid semiconductor       

B. will soon replace the present ones.

C. could be extremely thin          

D. has passed the final test.

75. The text is most probably a ________.

A. science news report        B. book review   

C. newspaper ad          D. science fiction story

 (10·遼寧C篇)

Too much TV-watching can harm children’s ability to learn and even reduce their chances of getting a college degree, new studies suggest in the latest effort to examine the effects of television on children.

One of the studies looked at nearly 400 northern California third-graders. Those with TVs in their bedrooms scored about eight points lower on math and language arts tests than children without bedroom TVs.

A second study ,looking at nearly 1000 grown-ups in New Zealand, found lower education levels among 26-year –olds who had watched lots of TV during childhood. But the results don’t prove that TV is the cause and  don't ride out that already poorly motivated youngsters (年輕人）may watch lots of TV.

    Their study measured the TV habits of 26-year-olds between ages5 and 15. These with college degrees had watch an average of less than two hours of TV per week night during childhood, compared with an average of more than 2 1/2 hours for those who had no education beyond high school.

    In the California study, children with TVs in their rooms but no computer at home scored the lowest while those with no bedroom TV but who had home computers scored the highest.

    While this study does not prove that bedroom TV sets caused the lower scores, it adds to accumulating findings that children shouldn't have TVs in their bedrooms

  64. According to the California study, the low-scoring group might _________.

    A. have watched a lot of TV

    B. not be interested ted in math

    C. be unable to go to college

    D. have had computers in their bedrooms

65. What is the researchers' understanding of the New Zealand study results?

    A. Poorly motivated 26-year-olds watch more TV.

    B. Habits of TV watching reduce learning interest.

    C. TV watching leads to lower education levels of the 15-year-olds.

    D. The connection between TV and education levels is difficult to explain

66. What can we learn from the last two paragraphs?

    A. More time should be spent on computers.

    B. Children should be forbidden from watching TV.

    C. 'IV sets shouldn't be allowed in children's bedrooms,

    D. Further studies on high-achieving students should be done

67. What would be the best title for this text?

    A. Computers or Television

    B. Effects of Television on Children

    C. Studies on TV and College Education

    D. Television and Children's Learning Habits

 (10·江西D篇)

Modern inventions have speeded up people’s loves amazingly. Motor-cars cover a hundred miles in little more than an hour, aircraft cross the world inside a day, while computers operate at lightning speed. Indeed, this love of speed seems never-ending. Every year motor-cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boats (吹噓) of saving precious seconds in handling tasks.

All this saves time, but at a price. When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane, our bodies tell us so.  We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet-lag; our bodies feel that they have been left behind on another time zone. Again, spending too long at computers results in painful wrists and fingers. Mobile phones also have their dangers, according to some scientist; too much use may transmit harmful radiation into our brains, a consequence we do not like to think about.

However, what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not relax, or so it seems. We are so accustomed constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and do nothing or even just one thing at a time. Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.

There was a time when some people’s lives were devoted simply to the cultivation of the land or the care of cattle. No multi-tasking there; their lives went on at a much gentler pace, and in a familiar pattern. There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard tasks our ancestor faced: they farmed with bare hands, often lived close to hunger, and had to fashion tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence.

68. The new products become more and more time-saving because         .

A. our love of speed seems never-ending

B. time is limited.

C. the prices are increasingly high.

D. the manufactures boast a lot.

 (10·湖南C篇)

People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions — and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.

      Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly(均勻的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.

      "We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions," Jack said. "Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect (忽略) the mouth."

      According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.

      The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of. expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.

      It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners. "The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions," Jack said. "Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less."

      In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.

66. The discovery shows that Westerners         .

    A. pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth

    B. consider facial expressions universally reliable

    C. observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways

    D. have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions                                                      

67. What were the people asked to do in the study?

A. To make a face at each other.              B. To get their faces impressive.

C. To classify some face pictures.            D. To observe the researchers' faces.                 

68. What does the underlined word "they" in Paragraph 6 refer to?

A. The participants in the study.

B. The researchers of the study.

C. The errors made during the study.

    D. The data collected from the study.                                                                                

69. In comparison with Westerners, Easterners are likely to         .

A. do translation more successfully

B. study the mouth more frequently

C. examine the eyes more attentively

D. read facial expressions more correctly                                                                          

70. What can be the best title for the passage?

    A. The Eye as the Window to the Soul

B. Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions

C. Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills

D. How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding                                                                     

 (10·全國ⅠC篇)

Along the river banks of the Amazon and the Orinoco there lives a bird that swims before it can fly, flies like a fat chicken, eats green leaves, has the stomach of a cow and has claws(爪)on its wings when young .They build their homes about 4.6m above the river ,an important feature(特征)for the safety of the young. It is called the hoatzin.

    In appearance，the birds of both sexes look very much alike with brown on the back and cream and red on the underside .The head is small, with a large set of feathers on the top, bright red eyes, and blue skin. Its nearest relatives are the common birds, cuckoos. Its most striking feature ,though, is only found in the young.

    Baby hoatzins have a claw on the leading edge of each wing and another at the end of each wing tip .Using these four claws ,together with the beak(喙),they can climb about in the bushes, looking very much like primitive birds must have done. When the young hoatzins have learned to fly ,they lose their claws.

During the drier months between December and March hoatzins fly about the forest in groups of 20 to 30 birds, but in April, when the rainy season begins, they collect together in smaller living units of two to seven birds for producing purposes.

63．What is the text mainly about?

    A．Hoatzins in dry and rainy seasons.

    B．The relatives and enemies of hoatzins.

    C．Primitive birds and hoatzins of the Amazon.

    D．The appearance and living habits of hoatzins.

64．Young hoatzins are different from their parents in that        ．

    A．they look like young cuckoos

    B．they have claws on the wings

    C．they eat a lot like a cow

    D．they live on river banks

65．What can we infer about primitive birds from the text?

    A．They had claws to help them climb.

    B．They could fly long distances.

    C．They had four wings like hoatzins.

    D．They had a head with long feathers on the top.

66．Why do hoatzins collect together in smaller groups when the rainy season comes?

    A．To find more food.

    B．To protect themselves better.

    C．To keep themselves warm.

    D．To produce their young.

 (10·江蘇D篇)

Imagine，one day，getting out of bed in Beijing and being at your office in Shanghai in only a couple of hours，and then，after a full day of work，going back home to Beijing and having dinner there．

Sounds unusual，doesn't it? But it's not that unrealistic，with the development of China’s high—speed railway system．And that’s not a11．China has an even greater high—speed railway plan—to connect the country with Southeast Asia，and eventually Eastern Europe．

China is negotiating to extend its own high·-speed railway network to up to 17 countries in 1 0 to 15 years，eventually reaching London and Singapore．

China has proposed three such projects．The first would possibly connect Kunming with  Singapore via Vietnam and Malaysia．Another could start in Urumqi and go through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan，and possibly to Germany．The third would start in the northeast and go north through Russia and then into Western Europe．

If China’s plan for the high-speed railway goes forward，people could zip over from London to Beiling in under two days．

The new system would still follow China’s high—speed railway standard．And the trains would be able to go 346 kilometers an hour，almost as fast as some airplanes．

    China’s bullet train(高速客車)，the one connecting Wuhan to Guangzhou，already has the   World’s fastest average speed．It covers 1,069 kilometers in about three hours．

Of course，there are some technical challenges to overcome．There are so many issues that need to be settled，such as safety，rail gauge(軌距)，maintenance of railway tracks．So，it’s important to pay attention to every detail．

But the key issue is really money．China is already spending hundreds of billions of yuan on  domestic railway expansion．

China prefers that the other countries pay in natural resources rather than with capital  investment．Resources from those countries could stream into China to sustain development．

It’11 be a win-win project. For other countries，the railway network will definitely create more opportunities for business，tourism and so on，not to mention the better communication among those countnes．

For China，such a project would not only connect it with the rest of Asia and bring some much-needed resources，but would also help develop China’s far west．We foresee that in the coming decades，millions of people will migrate to the western regions，where the land is empty and resources unused．With high-speed trains，people will set up factories and business centers in the west once and for a11．And they’11 trade with Central Asian and Eastern European countries．

 (10·安徽E篇)

The need to feed a growing population is putting much pressure on the word’s supply of water.With 97% of the word’s water too salty to be drunk or used in agriculture,the wordwide   supply of water needs carefull management，especially in agriculture .Although the idea of a water shortage(短缺) seems strange to someone fortunate enough to live in a high rainfall country,many of the word’s agriculture industries experience constant water shortages.

Although dams can be built to store water for agriculture use in dry areas and dry seasons,the costs of water redistribution(重新分配) are very high.Not only is there the cost of the engineering itself,but there is also an envitonmental cost to be considered.Where valleys(山谷) are flooded to create dams,houses are lost and wildlife homes destroyed.Besides,water may flow easily through pipes to fields,but it cannot be transported from one side of the world to the other.Each country must therefore rely on the management of its own water to suply its farming requirements.

This is particularly troubling for countries with agricultural industries in areas dependent on irrigation(灌溉).In Texas,farmers’ overuse of irrigation water has resulted in a 25% reduction of the water stores.In the Central Vally area of southwestern USA,a huge water engineering project provided water for farming in dry valleys,but much of the water use has been poorly managed.

73.Saudi Arabia’s attempts to grow wheat in desert areas have seen the pumping of huge quantities of irrigation water from underground reserves.Because there is no rainfall in these areas, such reseWhich of the folloeing is true?

A.The water stores in Texas have been reduced by 75％.

B.Most industries in the world suffer from water shortages.

C.The underground watet in Saudi Arabia might run out in 50 years.

D.Good management of water use resulted from the project in the Central Valley.

74.What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?

A.Steps to improving water use management.

B.Ways to reduce the cost of building dams.

C.Measures to deal with worldwide water shortages.

D.Approaches to handling the pressure on water supply.

WWW.       The text is mainly about________.

A.water supply and increasing population

B.warer use management and agriculture

C.water redistribution and wildlife protection

D.water shotages and environmental protection

rves can only decrease,and it is believed that fifty years of pumping will see them run dry.

72. From the first two paragraphs we learn that          .

A. much of the word’s water is available for use

B. people in high rainfall countries feel lucky

C. the costs of water redistribution should be considered

D. water can be easily carried through pipes across rhe world