The year of 2014 saw smart people always busy inventing useful things, which have hepled to make the world better, smarter and a little for fun. Now, let's take a look at some of the inventions. Super banana Australian biogeneticist James Dale visited Uganda, a poor African country, in the early 2000s, where he found that 15-30 percent of children under 5 were at risk of going blind because they did not get enough Vitamin A. Dale also learned that people there love bananas. They eat three to 11 bananas a day. So he came up with the idea to plant bananas containing added nutrition in order to improve Ugandans' health. With the help of Bill Gates' foundation, Dale developed the "super banana". He added a gene to the fruit, making it rich in Vitamin A. Coaching basketball Basketball is popular worldwide, partly because you only need a hoop and a ball to play the game. But this simple game has experienced a technology makeover this year with the development of a smart-sensor basketball. The ball, called the 94Fifty Basketball, has nine sensors inside. They can tell you anything from how fast you are going to how accurate your shot angles are. With a Bluetooth chip inside, the basketball can connect to your smartphone and tell you in the voice of a coach to "snap your wrist ", or"go faster", depending on the data. The Hovercraft Thanks to the California-based company Hendo, flying past your friends on a floating board could soon become a reality. The Hovercraft has four small engines. These create a special magnetic field which produce enough force to lift the board off the ground. At the moment, the hoverboard can only float an inch off the ground for 15 minutes and must fly over a metal material. It's expensive too, at $10,000 (61,810 yuan), but the company hopes that one day the technology could be used. Wireless electricity Most of us could not bear to live without wireless Internet. We use it every day for everything from our phones to our cars. But one company wants to go a step further, by combining... Which of the following statements would James Dale agree with? A) Children in Uganda should eat fewer bananas. B) Vitamin A is largely found in fruits like bananas. C) Super bananas are definitely a safe biological product. D) people's eating habits can be used to develop new food.
D
(Question)
Is it ever a good idea admitting a teenager to carry a credit card? My kids watch closely as I swipe the card through the register. They've seen me do it hundreds, thousands of times. Cool. They are _ to swipe it through the machine themselves. When we walk out of the store with our groceries or pet food, or whatever, it's almost as though money has not changed hands, painless, easy. So it shouldn't be shocking to discover that teenagers are becoming card carrying consumers in their own right. The question is, should they? While some argue it's best to teach kids how to use a credit card while still living under the family roof, not everyone agrees. Dave Ramsey, financial expert says getting credit card for your teenager is actually "an excellent way to teach him or her to be financially irresponsible." Now parents are required to co-sign on credit cards for children under 21. "If their name is on the credit card, then the parent may say, Hey, my name is on this. Don't get me into trouble," says Mary Beth Pinto, a marketing professor. "When parents were the co-obligors , the children caused less debt. If the parents are the co-obligors, the tendency is that the parents were explaining how to use the cards." Still, Pinto believes parents should start the process much earlier. "Yes, there has to be teaching going on and it has to start when they're younger. You're not going to get rid of credit cards. They are here to stay. You have to have them. You can't fight progress," Pinto said. Ramsey, however, disagrees. "Throwing teens into a pool of (credit) sharks is a sure way to guarantee a life-time of heartache." he said, "You can make online purchases and rent a car with a credit card. Of course, you must have money in your bank account before you can make a purchase with a credit card. But paying for things with money is what you are supposed to do." Pinto will most likely agree that _ . A) parents should let teens own their credit cards earlier B) you shouldn't be in control of credit cards C) it is never good for anyone to get a credit card D) learning to use credit cards is practical
(Answer)
D
Ques: If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you might go to Google and type in the words "flu symptoms" to see whether you've come down with the disease. Google knows that you might do something like that, and it also knows which state you're in if you are in the United States. Now, it's putting that information together in a tool that could find out flu outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use, according to CNN report. It is called Google Flu Trends. "What's exciting about Flu Trends is that it lets anybody---doctors, health officials, moms with sick children---learn about the current flu activity level in their own state based on the data that's coming in this week," said Jeremy Ginsberg, the lead engineer who developed the tool. The tool operates on the idea that there's likely to be a flu outbreak in states where flu-related search terms are currently popular. To test the accuracy of the data, Google compared its figures against statistics filed over the past five years by the US Centers for Disease Control. It has a network of 1,500 doctors across the US who provide weekly reports on the number of patients complaining of flu-like symptoms. "We found we could highly accurately estimate what the flu activity levels would be in those years," Ginsberg said. They also found that the Google statistics, which can be gathered daily, were up to two weeks ahead of the government's data. The government's data took time to collect because it came from so many doctors. The ability to speed up the response of health services could prove invaluable when a serious outbreak happens. The results of Google's comparisons with official health statistics will be published in the science journal Nature. Google hopes to extend the service to other countries, and may in time include other illnesses. At present, the flu data is given for each of the 50 American states. The company says there are no privacy issues involved as the trends are gathered through... What led to the development of Google Flu Trends? A) The fact that a lot of people use online information every day. B) The idea that a flu outbreak is likely where flu-related search terms are popular. C) The need to have a faster system than traditional ones currently in use by the government. D) The patients' complaining of flu-like symptoms.
Ans:
B