It's 10 pm. You may not know where your child is, but the chip does. The chip will also know if your child has fallen and needs immediate help. Once doctors arrive, the chip will also be able to tell them which drugs are not suitable for little Johnny or Janie. At the hospital, the chip will tell doctors his or her complete medical history. And of course, when you arrive to pick up your child, settling the hospital bill with your health insurance policy will be a simple matter of waving your own chip-the one embedded in your hand. To some, this may sound unbelievable. But the technology for such chips is no longer the stuff of science fiction. And it may soon offer many other benefits besides locating lost children or elderly patients. It could be used as credit cards and people won't have to carry wallets anymore. On the other hand, some are already wondering what this sort of technology may do to the sense of personal privacy and liberty. "Any technology of this kind could result in abuse of personal privacy," says Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "If a kid can be tracked, do you want other people to be able to track your kid? It's a double-edged sword." Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. in Palm Beach, Florida, says it has recently applied to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to begin testing its device in humans. About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip can be encoded with bits of information and embedded in humans under a layer of skin. When scanned by a nearby reader, the embedded chip gives the data. Most embedded chip designs are so-called passive chips, which give information only when scanned by a nearby reader. But active chips-such as the proposed Digital Angel of the future-will give out information all the time. And that means designers will have to develop some sort of power source that can provide a continuous source of energy, yet be small enough to be embedded with the chips. In addition to technical problems, many suspect... One of the features of the device considered by Applied Digital Solutions is _ A) duration B) capacity C) safety D) purpose
B
After we finished thirteen miles of hiking, we were tired and our muscles ached as we made our way back to New England. The car ride to the airport followed by a two-hour flight left our legs more worse condition than they were when we first came off the mountain we just climbed. When we heard that two seats in first class on our next flight were available for a bit higher price, we jumped at the opportunity. Our spirits lifted immediately. After all, flying first class was a new experience for us, and we would end our adventure in comfort and style. As we boarded the plane, we noticed that the stewardess was working non-stop to ensure the comfort of the first class passengers. She could not walk by a seat without receiving an order. How much she must love her job! She smiled kindly at each one while attending to their needs. As the stewardess walked by our seats near the end of the flight, I looked at her and said, "Thank you and I hope you have a great night." She stopped, bent down, looked at me and said, "Excuse me." I repeated my words and she smiled in a rather funny way, almost as if I had asked her a question that she did not know how to answer. After a few moments she returned to our seats. "I can tell you work with the public," she said. "Why do you think so?" I asked. She answered very quietly, "Because you are the only passenger here to say something nice to me tonight and I really appreciate your kindness." The sense of belonging to the elite group of people in first class disappeared as we heard her words. Our first class seats offered us more than a comfortable ride. We were reminded that without kindness, we would be flying in no class. Why did they choose to take a first class flight? A) Because they were extremely tired B) Because they wanted to go back as soon as possible C) Because the tickets were cheaper D) Because they wanted to enjoy the first class service.
A
Q: In Eastern Europe, blue jeans symbolize American culture and "the good life". In Spain they are known as "cowboys". In China, jeans are known as "niuzaiku", also, "cowboy trousers", which means they are connected with the American West cowboy culture and outdoor work. Jeans are usually made from denim , but may also be made from other materials. The earliest known cloth for jeans was a thick cotton cloth from the Indians. At first they were working clothes. They became popular among teenagers in the 1950s. Today jeans are a very popular form of casual wear around the world and come in many styles and colors. Jeans were first made in Genoa in Italy. The trousers were made for the Genoese navy because they needed trousers which could be worn wet or dry, and whose legs could be easily rolled up while the men were cleaning the ships. These jeans would be washed by pulling them in large fishing nets behind the ship, and the sea water would make them white. In the 1850s Levi Strauss, a business man living in San Francisco, was selling blue jeans under the "Levi's" name to the coal workers of California. During World War II, the coal workers liked jeans very much because they were strong and did not tear easily. In the 1950s, jeans became popular with young people in the United States. Wearing of blue jeans by teenagers was the symbol of rebels in TV programmes and movies. Some cinemas and restaurants refused to let people in if they wore blue jeans. In the 1980s, jeans finally became high fashion clothing, when famous designers started making their own styles of jeans, with their own labels on them. Sales of jeans went up and up. Jeans were first made in _ . A) Italy B) America C) Spain D) China
A: A
(Question)
The world's native languages are dying out at an unprecedented rate, taking with them irreplaceable knowledge about the natural world, according to a new study. The study identified five global "hot spots" where languages are _ faster than anywhere else ---- eastern Siberia, northern Australia, central South America, the US state of Oklahoma and the US Pacific Northwest. "Languages are suffering a global extinction crisis that greatly goes beyond the pace of species extinction," linguistics professor David Harrison noted, who said half of the world's 7,000 languages were expected to disappear before the end of the century. Native people had an intimate knowledge of their environment that was lost when their language disappeared, along with other certain things often unfamiliar to us, Harrison stressed. "Most of what we know about species and ecosystems is not written down anywhere, it's only in people's heads," he said. "We are seeing in front of our eyes the loss of the human knowledge base." Harrison was one of a team of linguists who carried out the study. The researchers traveled to Australia this year to study native languages, some of the most endangered. According to Harrison, in Australia, they were heartened to see a woman in her 80s who was one of the only three remaining speakers of the Yawuru language passing on her knowledge to schoolchildren. He said such inter-generational exchanges were the only way native languages could survive. "The children had elected to take this course, no one forced them," he said. "When we asked them why they were learning it, they said,'This is a dying language, we need to learn it'." Also, while there they found a man with knowledge of the Amurdag language, which had previously been thought extinct. The researchers said all five of the hot spots identified were areas that had been successfully colonized and where a dominant language such as Spanish or English was threatening native tongues. What does this text mainly talk about? A) A study on native languages endangered. B) The knowledge of native languages. C) People's efforts in saving native languages. D) Harrison and his study on languages.
(Answer)
A